


Cupid Cutting Teeth

by Glossolalia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Keith (Voltron), Dark Comedy, Dom Keith (Voltron), Drama, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Past Abuse, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Sex Work, Terminal Illnesses, Tongue-in-cheek Daddy kink, no one dies, pining shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 17:17:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glossolalia/pseuds/Glossolalia
Summary: Once a terminally ill author who dreamed of writing the next Great American Novel, Shiro is given a second chance at a long life thanks to a freak lightning strike. As if kissed by Zeus himself, Shiro not only becomes an overnight success writing homoerotic science fiction, but also, a designer-hungry gym rat with stalkers.All is well until he loses his muse.All is not well when he rediscovers said muse in a callboy wearing Balenciaga tennis shoes.





	Cupid Cutting Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, it's safe to say writing a writer is strange, haha. This prompt was given to me by the same person who prompted Like Crystal Guts, meaning they have a very similar kind of heart and soul. I basically consider this a Shiro-centric sister fic to LCG. It's been a long time since I've posted something new here, but this story contains a lot of my feelings about Shiro and his past relationship with Adam and how that could possibly impact Keith. 
> 
> I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me, but it was super cathartic to work on.

**1.**

Even gods have origin stories.

Some would argue, but Shiro wasn't born dropping Barton Perreira frames onto the scarred bridge of his nose. He was twenty-six when he first entered a Neiman Marcus, the heat of his freshman book advance charring his bank account like a twister from hell. Rational folks might suggest that was when the lascivious Takashi Shirogane was sired. He stepped through the automatic revolving doors as a mere mortal, wearing a secondhand navy cardigan from his senior year of college, and then exited in a black Belstaff leather jacket. Lightning crackled beneath his Samson Orlato Flat boots, and his mortality vaporized.

In this case, the myth is hardly as interesting as the truth.

If one were to scan Shiro's Wikipedia, then they would find a lengthy subsection dedicated to what's now known as The Lightning Strike Incident. It summarizes the tragedy neatly, stating Shiro made the mistake of meandering Ruby Beach during a thunderstorm. Had he sidestepped the splintered driftwood to the left and not the right, then maybe he wouldn't have become a homing beacon for Zeus himself, but Shiro didn't. Consequently, he wolfed down 10-billion volts, and somehow, survived.

Narrowly avoiding The Fatal Current could be considered a miracle, but that was merely the half of it. To understand the irony, one would have to know exactly why Shiro was there in the first place, his rotted New Balances nudging ocean-smooth stones and eyes pensively scanning rolling hills of anorexic pines.

See, Shiro was in the climax of a breakup.

The blue plastic tarp had been yanked off the idea of childhood sweethearts and any false advertisement claiming even the strongest love could stop people from growing apart had been disproven. Adam, his boyfriend of five years and the man he had intended to marry, wanted an out. With a finalizing announcement, Adam divided their furniture, coffee mugs, and packed the rice cooker in newspapers.

" _All you do is go to work and hole yourself up in the guest room until you go to bed. I never see you, and I don't know what else you want. You've won enough awards to satisfy any writer under thirty."_

" _Everyone does this when they're writing a book, Adam."_

" _You're wrong. They don't. People can write and have a life."_

" _Maybe that's because other people have lives that'll last. I don't have ten years to contemplate the next great American novel. I have to do it right now."_

" _So then what do I mean to you, Shiro? Am I just a footnote in your manuscript? You can't ask me to sit in the background alone and watch you die."_

If we're to get to the heart of the matter, then we have to accept there isn't a nice way to say someone is terminally ill. Of course, one can soften the neon by referring to terminal illness as a degenerative disease. Seemingly, a slow death is never as tragic as an abrupt one. People peering in from the outside – window shopping for opinions on mortality – comfort themselves with the misconception that a crawling end gives the sick time to make peace with their premature death.

That being said, there is no dignity in dying when you least want to, and Shiro knew this. Adam did, too. What neither man could agree on was Shiro's autonomy in their aging relationship. Shiro wanted a star-studded legacy, and Adam wanted a white picket fence, to watch fog burn off the beach alongside Shiro with coffee cups between their hands. Mostly, in that terribly loving way, Adam wanted Shiro.

Had it been another life, then maybe Shiro would have wanted Adam as much.

The morning Adam was scheduled to move Shiro drove to Olympic National Park with white knuckles and intrusive thoughts begging him to sail his car over the guardrail. Shiro had never considered himself a religious man, the kind of child who sat in the pew and wondered when everyone would privately disclose they were also playing pretend, but during the drive, Shiro looked skyward and railed through a list of questions. Ultimately, they boiled down to a simple  _why_. 

"The moving truck will be here around three," Adam said when Shiro swiped his keys off the coffee table. "I won't be here when you get back."

In the past, bouts of frustration had nailed Shiro like a staple gun. His one of many therapists told him it came with the territory of dying and that it was okay to mourn himself, but Shiro didn't want his body to be a funeral home. He wanted to exist in places  _and_  call the shots, not live his life in a polished casket.

"Fine," Shiro said. "Leave the key under the mat."

Shiro only vaguely recalls the seconds before he was struck by lightning. He remembers it best when he's dreaming, the lost moments appearing like healed over splinters he has to cut from his feet.

White foam frothing on vast sands stained dark with wet. The violent crest of waves curling in on themselves like drippy fists, and distantly, clouds swelled pregnant with fat raindrops.

He had zipped his North Face to his throat and counted the seconds in between rumbling thunder and marbling lightning, unknowingly 3, 2, 1-ing a freak marvel.

When asked what it feels like to be struck by lightning, Shiro never has a real answer. Being a writer, it's frustrating to emptily stare while attempting to gather the right words. He supposes it hurt worse than anything he'd experienced before, and he  _thinks_  there was a split-second when nothing in his body registered. Shiro likes the idea that his heart might have restarted, but because it was beating when he was found, it's impossible to say for sure.

To satisfy his interviewer's wonder, he often claims it was like being shocked by an outlet but multiplied by a million. The burn along his nose hurt until it didn't, but saying so is never gilded enough.

The truth is Shiro didn't wake up in the hospital bed with much thought about the lightning strike itself. He was told what had happened by a nervous doctor who fussed with Shiro's chart while speaking, refusing to make eye contact as if perplexed by something far greater than Shiro's surface injuries.

He had been in a coma for a week. His hospital room was stuffed with wilting flowers, begging for fresh water, and an assortment of cheap teddy bears clinging to bulgy red hearts that made Shiro flush with embarrassment. The thoughtful tokens didn't do much to offset the acrid air and lingering wafts of bleach.

"Adam Walsh," Shiro croaked, breath sour from days without brushing his teeth. When he spoke, his nose shifted just enough for the healing skin to crack. His eyes watered. "Has he been here?"

The name registered, but the doctor remained cautious, carefully articulating. "We made several attempts to contact him. We were under the impression his contact information had changed since you filled out your release forms. If you have his number, then we'll make sure he's notified about what's happened."

Adam hadn't changed his number in six years. Shiro's parents, both who were long dead, didn't have any siblings in the states. None of his coworkers or friends were obligated to stop their lives and stay by him.

"Never mind." Shiro closed his eyes and sank into the crinkling pillows, head throbbing. "Do I need to sign anything?"

"We're going to want to keep you here overnight to monitor you, and you'll need to have the feeding tube removed, so no rush. You're an extraordinarily lucky man, Shiro."

Luckier than he could begin to imagine, she added before promising to explain exactly why once he had recuperated enough to drink a nutritional shake or two. Shiro didn't want food, his weakened body nudging in protest. Only after an elderly nurse guilted him did he begrudgingly suck down his PediaSure.

Even with droopy flowers to offset the fluorescent lighting, Shiro's room was washed out by mounting loneliness and the antiseptic smell of scrubbed sickness. His hands kneaded the sheet draping his knees.

Being human was horrendous, and Shiro couldn't shake the feeling he would forever only write about people who were happier than him, who wanted to live so much more than he ever could let himself.

No one had been there waiting for him to wake up.

" _While you were out, we ordered a series of tests to see if the electrocution complicated your muscle atrophy, but after triple checking with the lab, we couldn't find a trace of your original diagnosis."_

No one would be there when he got home.

 

**2.**

And gods need muses.

Coran props an alligator skin boot onto Shiro's desk and tears off his sunglasses. He points a manicured finger in the man's direction, a nonverbal threat, and heaves with his whole chest.

"That third book is a legal obligation! If you don't get those fingers doing the Irish jig across your keyboard lickity-split, then we'll both lose our heads!"

Seated deep in his leather desk chair, Shiro stares past his agent. When he speaks, it's void of feeling. "Look, Coran. It'll get done. All I need is another short extension."

"You've extended yourself out the wazoo." Coran pushes his boot closer to Shiro, and Shiro lifts his mug out of the way, murmuring something about designer desk prices. "If the draft isn't finished in four months, then every dime of that advance you've spent is going right back to them  _with_  interest."

"When is the new deadline again?"

Coran closes his eyes. "I'm going to pretend you didn't ask me that."

The professional thing to do would be to apologize. Normally, Shiro has a perverted appreciation for starched competency, but he's off-color today. He remains stalwart instead, mouth thin and fingers drumming in front of his tightly shut MacBook. It might as well be welded shut.

"Right then," Coran concedes and drops his foot onto the rug. Pocketing his sunglasses, he smooths out his anger and leans against the desk. "I'm going to ask you a personal question."

"Shouldn't you ask if you can first?"

Coran lifts and drops his shoulders. He passively looks out the window, feigning wistfulness and peering through the vaporous morning. "When did you last make hanky-panky?"

Shiro lifts his brow, growing pallid. "I'm not answering that."

"False modesty!" he accuses, voice high with drama. "You've made a fortune off writing the slipperiest man-on-man erotica and yet here you are, pretending the topic is taboo!"

Shiro pushes his chair from the desk and rises to his feet. He takes his coffee with him to the nearest window and swipes his fingers across the sill, grumbling at the collected dust.

"A year," he says.

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid I must have misheard."

Shiro refrains from asking Coran to bury him in a crawlspace. He tilts his head back and inspects the wood beam that partitions his ceiling. It's cosmetic and he insisted on having it, but now he hates it.

"A year!" he yells.

"Good heavens!"

Shiro adjusts his black Dior turtleneck and swallows his final dregs of coffee. He ignores the hives scaling his throat and dismissively shrugs at Coran's alarm. There's no denying it's a knife wound to his masculinity. He's in a pathetic situation and doesn't need Coran to add an entire goddamn salt mine.

"Writing isn't exactly what I'd call a social job," Shiro says in an attempt to not only convince Coran that he is perfectly capable of getting laid but also himself. "I just haven't thought about it much lately."

Shiro doesn't have to look at Coran's face to know the man isn't convinced. Coran sympathetically hums, making Shiro defensively straighten his back.

"I see," Coran says, relinquishing his melodrama. He approaches Shiro's side and places a hand on his shoulder. "Shiro, I know Adam rejecting your attempt to rekindle the fire has been difficult on you. He was wrong. We both know that flash mob was a brilliant idea, but as they say, it's time to re-saddle."

Shiro purses his lips. "Why are we talking about this?"

Reenergized, Coran pushes his weight off Shiro's solid mass and wheels himself to the center of the office, arms opening like a _The Sound of Music_  sequence. "Inspiration, of course! You need inspiration!"

"I don't have time to date." Shiro deflates, lids falling heavy. "Especially if I'm going to be writing a book in four months."

"You leave the details to me." Coran retrieves his Saint Laurent sunglasses from his shirt pocket, dons them, and then unearths his iPhone. His thumbs whip across his email app. "Fair warning, though. What I have in mind might be a little different from the conventional dating scene, but there's no harm in change now, is there? Anyway, you've changed so much since we first met. This could be right up your alley."

Shiro decides to lie to himself again. "I haven't changed that much."

"For the betterment of our professional relationship, I will not remind you that you're now a designer mongering bleach blond with a six-pack and no longer a reedy man in Keds."

"New Balances," he fondly corrects.

"I was trying to buffer your dignity." Coran strides toward the door. "Expect an email from me by the end of the day. With God as my witness, you will have your muse!"

Shiro rubs his chest through his Calvin Klein V-neck. "Just make sure it's legal."

Coran only replies when he's halfway down the hall. "Magic abides its own laws!"

Shiro waits for the front door to slam shut and security system to chirp before he stops window gazing.

Desperately in need of more coffee, Shiro shuffles from the wood-heavy office to his modern kitchen, passing several framed erotic sketches of the male form. He catches a glimpse of his reflection in their glass but darts his stare aside, self-consciously touching his mercilessly styled and processed undercut.

Whether or not he likes it, Coran is right. He's changed.

While Shiro can't determine if it's for the better, he can't fathom looking back on who he was. After surviving the lightning strike, he set aside his aspiration to write a literary novel and stagnated, suddenly void of the purpose he once lauded. Everything he typed read like a dry well. Shiro had the right to be both morbidly depressed and ecstatic about his miraculously prolonged life. Somehow, he felt nothing.

His belfry had been robbed. The tolling that once resonated through him, created the rhythm that kept him writing with two big fat middle fingers lifted toward God, had grown silent.

Needing to write something –  _anything_  – Shiro began writing for a popular gay erotica forum.

Not because he believed erotica was easier. It simply required a creative change his destabilized timeline yearned for. Shiro was lonely but alive to the point of feeling outside his skin. Imagining cocks hammering the backs of throats aroused him, and in turn, filled his voided love life. Until the sky turned from blackish-blue to plum, Shiro would lie in bed and type fantasies into his Notes app. Without much editing, he would post the patchy paragraphs, and then after masturbating, roll onto his side and sleep.

Two weeks of nightly posting was followed by sensationalism that rivaled his lightning strike.

The first crack of thunder was a fellow writer who commented and publicly asked Shiro how he had managed to make a raw ass-pounding read with grace and tangibility. The actual strike landed when Shiro posted a picture of his newly sculpted six-pack directly after a story. By conjoining his evolving physique with erotic fiction, Shiro manifested an Other Self that amassed a horny and restless following.

His readers not only wanted to add his content to their spank bank, anonymously confessing fetish after fetish in his comment threads and thanking him for guilty validation, but they craved more of  _him_.

Married men old enough to be his father approached Shiro with obese wallets, offering to cover his rent if it meant the difference between more content and a couple private photos.

This lit a dusty lightbulb in the most desperate recess of Shiro's mind. He'd never considered monetizing his work. Erotic writing was meant for bleeding frustration with imaginary leather harnesses, choking and getting his ass kicked. Shiro had intended on returning to literary pursuits, but he was no longer sure why.

If his work evoked feeling and comforted others, then wasn't that accomplishing exactly what he'd been pursuing from the start?

Shiro spent weeks pondering his options while driving the Geek Squad bug back and forth between suburban houses. In those groomed colonials with crown molding and dated gold fixtures, women entering middle age who had been conned into purchasing smart televisions waited. As soon as the door revealed Shiro, they would preen their toned hair and smooth down their velvet tracksuits. Internally, Shiro would scream 'gay' until his chest ached from retention, but externally, he flashed white teeth.

"Don't worry, ma'am. We'll figure it out."

There was no denying these women watched an abundance of straight porn. Maybe they even shared their collections.

More than once, Shiro found himself like a carcass baking beneath a circling vulture, politely ignoring how1 his client thought a silk robe and nothing else was the appropriate outfit to wear while he worked. If he'd had the money, then Shiro would have given all of them gift cards to Drybar if only to keep them out of  _his_  hair. Then again, Shiro figured that if he could afford a Rolodex of Drybar gift cards he probably wouldn't be working for Geek Squad in the first place.

Shiro only settled on his career options because of Carmella, a regular who bought new technology with every passing season and infallibly requested Shiro by name once she couldn't make her newest toy work. She claimed Shiro was the only one who knew what he was doing, and Shiro, along with his coworkers, knew better. Carmella wanted eye candy, one-sided conversations, and in her dreams, to bump uglies.

Her conversation always began the same way.

"I still don't know what a good boy like you is doing without a ring on his finger. Someone should've swiped you up by now."

Seated on Carmella's West Elm couch with a laptop balanced on his sculpted thighs, Shiro's brain repeated the words 'good boy' like a Broadway marquee.

Shiro laughed, aching for Death's tender touch. "Just haven't found the right person, I guess."

She seated herself beside him, making the cushion dip. "Marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be, but maybe that's only when you're a woman. You men don't know the first thing about loneliness."

Shiro stared through her MacBook screen, survival instincts torpedoing. He popped open window after window and envied Matt Holt's programming speed. His heart hummed like a rabbit's as his fingers expertly danced across the keys and trackpad. Shiro decided he hated MacBook, and especially, Tim Cook.

Belatedly, he replied. "We probably don't."

Carmella placed her hand on his thigh, and frankly, Shiro didn't understand. This isn't to say he didn't understand he was being sexually harassed on the job. He was more than aware. What Shiro couldn't wrap his beefy brain around was the allure of faded khakis and tennis shoes. At this point in his life, his ass hadn't reached its magnum buoyancy that would one day make even the most pastel pair of Chubbies forgivable. He was a nerd in pleated pants he excavated after rummaging through a Kohl's sales rack.

"I suck dick," Shiro announced, terse and merciless. "Actually, I love dick. That's actually why I'm not married. I just broke up with my boyfriend of five years, and I'm doing my fucking best."

Carmella wrenched back, but Shiro barely acknowledged her retreat. He was already thinking up poses for those private photos. Hell, maybe he'd even bleach his asshole. It wasn't like he had anything to lose.

Snapping Carmella's computer shut, Shiro rose to his feet and hastily scribbled down the passwords he created.

"Thank you for using Geek Squad," Shiro said with his retail voice, opening the front door. He battled the urge to kick her umbrella stand. "If you continue to have access issues, then don't be afraid to call us."

Shiro slammed the door shut behind himself and leaned back against the door. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and imagined gouging them out. If only it wouldn't make writing harder.

"Fuck."

Aware of his inevitable firing, Shiro drove to the nearest Panera Bread. He ignored the calls from his manager and ate his guilty pleasure in a deserted parking lot, scrolling his News app and descending deeper into despair. He took a final bite of his mediocre macaroni and cheese just as his email app updated. Shiro anticipated another Banana Republic promotional ad or Matt's last-ditch attempt to contact him, but seated at the top was his first of many emails from Coran's literary agency, Altean House.

  

**3.**

When Coran unveils his inspiration, Shiro is capping a pen after that week's second signing.

Both men are standing behind a table framed by posters featuring the covers from his Stellar Mass series, pointedly avoiding hysterical fans who missed the line cut off. Shiro's shoulders haven't even adjusted beneath his Tom Ford jacket when Coran thrusts a matte black flier in his face, rapidly tapping his pointy indigo boot. Shiro notices him, of course. Coran's carroty mustache would be hard to miss even with cataracts, but he intentionally takes his time packing up his belongings before he bothers turning his head.

"You found something?" Shiro asks, eyeing the flier while he swings a leather messenger bag over his shoulder.

Coran lifts the piece of paper beside his face with both hands. "This  _something_  is the answer to all of your woes. It's called the Black Lion Club, and it specializes in your flavor."

Shiro isn't sure how he'd describe his flavor. He's currently in the midst of writing a gay series that takes place in deep space. The characters wear shiny black latex suits and sometimes encounter tentacles attracted to warm holes. The lead protagonist, Akira, is a brusque but golden-hearted leader who pilots wolf-shaped ships alongside his ragtag team of space military Earthlings. Currently, the B-team is attempting to trounce a tyrannical alien emperor and his wizard lover, but Akira is lost on a planet with his longtime friend and ex-mentor, Sven. The two protagonists are full of yearning and sexual tension.

Wanting to be polite, Shiro takes the flier and murmurs, "At least they can afford a decent graphic designer."

The flier is a high-resolution image of a lean but muscular male body wearing a leather harness and latex shorts.  _Black Lion_  is capitalized in minimalist font and situated above the equally clean words 'the finest gentleman's company.' Shiro flips it over, curious about the service's home base but can't find one.

"There might be sticker shock, of course. You can only hire yourself one of these lads if you've got yourself an AMEX, but that isn't a problem for you, Mr. Tom Ford."

Shiro attempts to hand back the flier, quirking a corner of his mouth. "I can't, Coran. I appreciate the help, but this isn't how I go about things. I'll visit a nightclub if I have to."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Coran's hands flutter along his throat. "This is more personable than a nightclub and much less sweaty. You don't have the time to take chances, especially when you're so out of practice. It could be weeks before you find someone who'll go home with you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Shiro would be more insulted if it didn't make sense. He reluctantly deposits the paper into his bag and exhales, scratching his temple with the pen. "I'll think about it."

"Well, I recommend you think about it fast because you have an appointment with a pretty one named Keith at 10 PM, and no takesy-backsies either. All down payments are final."

If there's one thing Shiro values above all else, then it's his agency. Heat churns inside his ears as his threaded eyebrows climb for his hairline. His oncoming rage fit is interrupted by Coran's chiming phone. Shiro is forced to simmer as he waits for Coran to conclude his conversation with the marketing team.

"What if they send me a creep?" Shiro asks as soon as Coran hangs up.

"Be reasonable, Shiro. This is a reputable establishment, and anyway, what could possibly be creepier than the guy we found living in your shed?"

Shiro's shoulders plummet. "That's a low bar."

"For some, it could be considered quite a high one!"

Coran agilely turns on a heel and speeds away from the table. Shiro trails him, unprepared to let the moment pass without a real fight.

"What kind of service is this? Do you have sex? Is it strictly power play? I need to know what I'm getting myself into here."

"Assisted masturbation!" Coran shouts. Several bookstore patrons pause their browsing to turn their attention to the two men. Shiro massages his temple, trying to become small. "He won't touch you unless he wants to, and from what I gathered, that doesn't happen very often, so don't worry about your performance, Shiro. There'll be no judgment this evening. No, sir. Just pure artistic inspiration and joy!"

Shiro's dignity withers. "I wasn't worried about performance issues."

He follows Coran out the front door, finding himself thrust into Downtown Seattle's evening bustle. Shiro continues to shadow Coran who's calling their driver. If he loved himself more, then he would question his willingness to play along with Coran's plan, but Shiro knows Coran is one false move away from dropping him from Altean House. Something has to give, and unfortunately, this time it's Shiro.

 

**4.**

_$600_

To reserve a night, it cost him six C-notes.

Shiro descends in the hotel elevator, arms crossed. He fights lamenting the single shoe he could've purchased with that amount of money and replaces it with other aggravations. The agency refused to send him a photo of Keith even though they had one of him. The secretary described Keith's outfit, claiming a lack of photo was to protect their boys, but Shiro was well-aware the agency now had blackmail on him.

Either way, Shiro loses, so he tries to blank his mind and stifle is suffering. This doesn't last long. While not huge on external responses, Shiro thrives on his own internal chaos.

He stares at himself in the wide elevator mirrors and tugs at the sleeves of his black velvet Members Only bomber jacket. Shiro cards his fingers through his undercut that was recently digitally permed into loose waviness. Once again, Coran's words haunt him. He's changed. He really has.

The doors slide open with a ping, and Shiro steps out, black Timberlands striding across the marble floor. It's a Saturday night, so the hotel bar with its high ceilings, wood paneling, and abundance of low armchairs is vibrating with conversations. The overwhelming environment suits the game he's playing. No one will overhear his conversation with this Mysterious Keith. They can discreetly drink before heading upstairs.

9:51 PM

Shiro orders a rye and diet and disappears into a corner. He sinks into a plush chair and wonders if five minutes is long enough to suck down two drinks and a shot or three. Dreading whiskey dick, he decides against it and paces himself. Keith has his number, but he hasn't texted him to let him know where he is. Shiro considers the possibility Coran accidentally screwed him out of money but then remembers Coran swore he did his research on the Black Lion Club. The man is as chronically efficient as he is unorthodox.

10:03 PM

Shiro's eyes lift from his touchscreen. They rove, assessing the mingling bodies and looking for a black bomber jacket with gold sleeves. The operator said a red lion would be artfully stitched across the back.

In his peripheral vision, something metallic shimmers, flashes like a lighthouse.

A man Shiro  _hopes_  is Keith sidles through the door, and as if being mocked, the opening guitar riff to  _When Doves Cry_  pours from the overhead speakers. Keith's presence saturates the crowded space with a raw, bone-splitting energy found only in highway pileups and begonia-slick pavement.

It would be too easy to call him beautiful, even if saying so wouldn't be incorrect.

His features are severe and swan-like, chin and cheekbones sharp. They're cut by eyes so blue and rooted in their pigment they could be mistaken for two polished amethysts. He's tall, too, but still half a head shorter than Shiro. It's his leanness that makes him seem much smaller, but even that is offset by carefully accrued muscles and a sultry pout. Keith's mouth is weighted like a timeworn artifact nested in limestone.

_Well, shit._

Keith's eyes flit across the bar, clinically discerning the drunken heard of businessmen. They land on Shiro and alertness flits across his face like headlights sweeping through a dark room. He unassumingly makes his way to Shiro's private nook, tinged with cool boredom. The leather duffel bag on Keith's shoulder beats his hip, and Shiro has the perverse satisfaction of guessing what might be inside.

Casually, Shiro lifts two fingers in greeting.

Maybe Coran was actually onto something.

"Takashi Shirogane," Keith says and drops the hefty overnight bag onto the floor. He takes a seat beside Shiro before Shiro can stand to shake his hand. Keith easily leans back, knees parted wide. He lazily gestures at a waitress with a finger, flashing an artificial smile. "You're even better looking in person."

"Thank you," Shiro says, posing it as a question. He regrets not drinking more. "Keith, right?"

"Imagine if I wasn't." Keith orders his own rye and diet, specifying Bulleit bourbon, and turns back to Shiro with a passive exhale. "So what do I call you?"

"Shiro. Just Shiro."

"Inspired," Keith says. It takes Shiro a second to notice the sly smile. It was a joke, not a dismissal. "Ever done this before, Shiro?"

"No," Shiro admits, rubbing his thumb along the arm of his chair.

"So you're honest, but I could already tell." Keith crosses his legs and bounces his hanging Balenciaga Triple S, hands diving into his pockets. It occurs to Shiro he looks like a rich delinquent masquerading as paid arm candy. "I could have told you that based on your schoolboy posturing."

"Schoolboy," Shiro repeats, wondering if insults are a part of his act. "I'm pretty sure I'm older than you."

"Doesn't make a difference, but that's a good place to start. Your age. Tell me about yourself, Mr. Shirogane. Stick to the basics, though. I'm a hooker, not a therapist."

Shiro doesn't like talking about himself and Keith has proven to be crude, so already this is moving too fast for him. He swallows a generous sip to buy himself time.

"I'm twenty-eight," Shiro says, fighting bleak existentialism at the thought. "I write erotic novels for a living, and I spend most of my free time at the gym."

Keith's expression doesn't change. "Did you go to school or are you a one in a million success?"

"My alma mater is WSU. I graduated with a degree in physics, but the writing minor won out."

For reasons unknown, this seems to appease Keith. "Funny how that happens."

"I've learned things usually don't go according to plan," Shiro says, tone light to fight off how vulnerable the line feels. He thinly smiles. "It could be worse. I'm probably happier for it."

"No hobbies," Keith adds, not even asking.

"Writing _is_  my hobby."

His mouth slips sideways. "Huh."

It's amazing how one syllable can make a man's balls feel microscopic. Shiro scratches his throat as Keith continues to assess him.

"Your job is your hobby," Keith reiterates, sharp claws pressing.

Rolling his lips together, Shiro battles defensiveness. "You think there's something wrong with that."

"Does it matter if I do? Either way, I can tell by your shoulders you're retentive, probably bored, and you have no idea who you are outside of your job." The waitress sets down a napkin and Keith's amber drink. He leans forward for it and lingers in Shiro's space. "Maybe you should tell me if it's wrong or not."

Chuckling through his exasperation, Shiro smiles. "I thought you said you weren't a therapist."

"I'm not." Keith lifts his glass to Shiro with his own sly smile. "This is purely a conversation. I'm getting to know you."

Shiro knows when he's been played. It's his fault for gauging Keith based on his pretty looks alone. Shiro snaps his defenses into place, and he graciously acknowledges Keith's win. After another long sip, he shifts closer to Keith so that he can hear him over the ever-babbling crowd. They're almost deafening.

"What about you?" Shiro asks and shakes free the ice in his glass. "Aside from reading Freud, what're your hobbies? How old are you? What exactly am I dealing with here?"

Keith laughs. The noise is cracked coal, fissures glowing orange and threatening to break. It isn't rehearsed laughter, the kind that would make Shiro tell Keith to keep his six-hundo and go.

"Twenty-two," Keith says. He circumvents Shiro's startled blink and challenges it with an incredulous stare. "I'm finishing college in the spring, so you can breathe. If I'm not in school or working for the Black Lion, then I'm rearing my son, Red. He's an ATS-V Coupe. My pictures are in my other wallet."

His curiosity piques, but he tames it and plays along. "Always refreshing to meet a devoted young father."

"Be the change you wanna see in the world."

"No hobbies," Shiro says, also not asking. "Just a car. Interesting."

Keith sips and looks away, shrugging. "I have hobbies. They just have nothing to do with why I'm here."

Rubbing his throat, Shiro laughs despite himself. "Can I at least ask what you're majoring in?"

He swirls his glass. "You're not my uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, so no."

"Okay." Shiro lifts a palm, surrendering. "I won't ask personal questions."

Keith appraises Shiro with a long, detached look. He drops the thoughtfulness and props himself up on an elbow. "So why do you need me? What am I doing for you upstairs?"

Shiro finishes his drink but refrains from ordering another. Keith's eyes pierce him, thread through his person with uncensored expectancy. It's as if he  _thinks_  he already knows what Shiro is going to say.

"It was my agent who called your employer. This might sound weird, but the third installment of my series is due in a few months, and I can't seem to make it happen. He thinks it's because I haven't been dating. There's no inspiration left. You could say meeting up with you is how I'm keeping my job."

Shiro decides his scenario could be worse, somehow.

"Do you  _want_  to do this?" Keith asks, suddenly serious.

Shiro backpedals. "It was either this or a bar, and I don't like BDSM clubs."

"Then let's set something straight." Keith points at him with a hard gaze, glass hanging from his other hand. "I'm here to make you feel good. You're going into this thinking you want one thing. People always do, but you're going to come out wanting something entirely different. I know your type, Shiro."

"That's it?" Shiro says, gingerly mocking him. "Don't I need to sign something? Are there liability forms?"

"No," Keith says. "But we'll lay down some ground rules when we're alone."

Shiro is aware he's out of his league here, so he decides to go with the flow. "Fine by me."

"A book," Keith belatedly says. He snorts and chugs his drink. Without ceremony, he rises to his feet and retrieves his bag from the floor. "Hell of a reason to need a master. Let's go. We're burning oil."

"Master?" Shiro quietly says, gesturing at the waitress to pay the bill.

Keith wraps his fingers around his bag strap. "That's what your agent requested. A master who's a head shorter and can make a big man cry like a newborn… whatever… an animal..."

"A yalmor?"

"Yeah. That." He pauses to ponder. "Is that even real?"

"It's a mammalian animal from his favorite science fiction series," Shiro explains. He decides nothing could be less horny. "You know, usually, when I do this kind of thing, it's sort of the other way around."

Keith lifts and drops his shoulders. "Do you like wrestling?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Whether or not Keith hears, Shiro isn't sure.

Keith nods toward the bar entrance and walks ahead of Shiro as if he knows exactly where to go. He likely does. Shiro would bet his life savings he's not the first man Keith has met at this bar.

 

**5.**

The elevator ride is uncomfortably quiet, both men on opposite ends of the lift and mirroring each other with crossed arms. Shiro wants to make conversation, but he's not good at small talk.

"You're huge," Keith says.

Shiro isn't sure how to reply. "I work out."

"Wow." Keith lifts an eyebrow. "Do you?"

Shiro can't decide if he likes the antagonistic tone or not. Whether or not he likes it clearly doesn't matter to his lizard brain because Keith's sarcasm makes his navel stir. He gives Keith a once-over.

"You're one to talk."

"It's a job requirement," he promises, but Shiro can hear the lie. Keith knows the power in being a man who's both classically beautiful and conspicuously handsome.

They silently leave the elevator, and once the key card is swiped and door heaved open, Keith makes a beeline for the en-suite. He tosses his bag through the door and roughly unzips his silk jacket. It falls off his shoulders as he flips on the custardy bathroom light, artfully creating shadows along his face.

"I'm not your boyfriend, so no kissing," Keith begins. Shiro takes Keith's jacket and hangs it. "No touching without my permission, period. The safe phrase is  _red lion_. Do you care if I leave marks?"

Shiro shrugs off his jacket too. "As long as I don't look like I got in a bar fight, no."

"Good," Keith says. He looks at himself in the mirror and admires himself, touching his own jaw. "I don't get mark much. Everyone who hires me is usually married. What are your squicks? What can't I do to you? Give me your pain tolerance from one to ten. Ten being having your arm sliced off with a sword."

"I'm okay with most things. An eight."

Keith whistles, disbelieving. "We'll see about that one, Daddy."

_Daddy._

The delivery is so casual and practiced Shiro takes too long to digest it to comment without sounding vapid.

Leaning against the desk, Shiro folds his arms. "Anything else?"

"Strip," Keith orders, swinging the door shut behind himself. "I won't take long."

The command doesn't give Shiro much to go on. Stripping could be everything or just his shirt. He toes the line and undresses until he's standing barefoot in black Calvin Klein boxer briefs.

Shiro knows he looks good body-wise, thoughtlessly touching his firm pectorals and the abdomen that could have paid his rent. It's a wonder he's unable to settle down with someone or at least hookup.

There has to be an error. He dares to consider he's depressed, but admitting he's crumbling during what many would consider his peak years is too humiliating to bear. He's alive. He's happy. That's it.

Shiro pats both sides of his face and whispers, "Get it together."

The bathroom door swings open without fanfare. One second it's shut and the next it's framing Keith whose metallic jacket has been replaced with a latex harness. The strips crisscross along his chest like the X on a mythic treasure map, making Keith the true goal. Shiro thought Keith was in shape before, but his black latex shorts and matching latex thigh highs only accentuate his toned legs and chiseled stomach.

Keith sizes Shiro up with half-masked surprise.

Pretending he has no idea why Keith would react that way, Shiro shifts his weight onto a single foot and lets a hand settle on his hip. He lifts his eyes to Keith, expectantly watching him.

"Something wrong?" Shiro asks. "You look concerned."

Keith wrenches himself from his daze, walking forward with the bag. "You're no longer in a position to ask questions."

"Oh," Shiro says, already challenging Keith's authority. "Right."

"On your stomach." Shiro turns toward the bed, but Keith whistles for his attention. Shiro glances over his shoulder, and Keith is extracting a riding crop from his bag. "No, Daddy. The floor."

Shiro does as told. There's no dignity in lowering himself onto his knees and then his stomach, but the way Keith watches him, processes him with something akin to uncertainty, lifts Shiro's confidence.

On the floor, he balances himself on his forearms. Shiro pretends if he looks back he'll turn into a pillar of salt. He stares down the bed frame legs instead, even fixating on the hotel-issued safe. Footsteps approach him with a slow gait, causing his stomach to clench and burn hot. Too long. Keith is taking too long.

Right when he thinks he'll have to check on Keith, a shiny black Doc Marten presses against the back of his skull. Shiro thinks he knows how he got there, but as his face rubs against the carpet, he's not sure.

"That's my good Daddy," Keith says, the distaste unmistakable as the tip of his riding crop drags along Shiro's naked hip. He stands with ease, all contrapposto. "Obedient already, too. You're dying for this."

Shiro inhales, the shudder giving him away. A lover of control, he loathes his body for doing anything against his will.

"I don't know if I'd say I'm dying," Shiro mutters, dry.

Keith hums, and Shiro hears the hidden laughter. It's morbid, but mostly, it's appreciative.

Without warning, leather slices the air. A sting rips its nails up Shiro's thigh, and he hisses into the carpet with clamped teeth. Keith's leans over Shiro's back, his shadow growing long. He seizes Shiro's white bangs, and after whispering a mocking  _Daddy_ , wrenches Shiro's face skyward. Keith stares down his prey, expression cold and bored. The glass light fixture hangs directly behind his head, and its spherical glow creates a corona of light that reminds Shiro of the Pre-Raphaelite painting he once obsessed over.

A knee lands on his lower back, knocking out air, but Keith doesn't let him go. He lowers his mouth to Shiro's ear and brushes his lips along the shell.

"Big men like you always want someone to fuck their asses. The histrionics get boring, make you resentful, and no one can play a part forever. You want me to make you cry like a bitch. Isn't that right, Daddy? Nothing makes you want to get your dick wetter than someone like me tearing you up."

Shiro isn't sure if he even agrees with that sentiment, but something inside him forces his mouth to formulate a weak 'yes.' Keith clenches onto his hair tighter.

" _Yes,_   _what_?"

Shiro stammers. "I don't – "

Keith's grip tightens, threatens to rip free strands. "We went over this."

It takes Shiro a second to understand, but when he does, his scar flushes pink. He can't say the next words loudly. He'll throw himself off the balcony. "Yes, Master."

"Pathetic." Keith releases Shiro's scalp but digs in his knee, shifting his weight with a sigh. "But that's okay. I know how to make men like you open their slutty mouths."

Another fiery strike sears his ass. It's rapidly followed by a second and a third and a fourth, and soon, Keith is beating him in tandem with his heartbeat. The strength behind each crack against his flesh intensifies, turning his sizzling nerves into a numb tundra. Keith is versed enough to know this will happen, and when something Shiro can't see satisfies him, he begins to whip in the opposite direction.

Shiro takes the lashing with grace. His winces gradually open onto husky moans, and the pain transcends, becomes an unfeeling tingle. He enters a headspace that leaves his forehead pressed against the carpet, breathing ragged and cock stiff. He told Keith he could do whatever he wanted, but Keith isn't pushing.

With welts crosshatching his thighs, Keith tugs Shiro onto his back and saddles his lap. He glides his hands up the man's broad chest, back arching low and cat-like. Keith reaches between them and brushes his palm over Shiro's straining cock. He traces the shaft through the cotton with two thoughtless strokes.

"We need the blindfold," Keith says. "You're too focused on everything else in the room."

Shiro fights the urge to touch Keith. His fingers curl into fists. "My body feels pretty tuned in."

"So you say."

Shiro rolls his hips, and while Keith lifts an eyebrow, he doesn't stop him. "Yours looks into it, too."

"Stop," Keith says without passion.

Keith grinds back once, slow and shameless as his bulge drags along the one beneath him. As if belatedly realizing what he did, Keith pauses his hips. He clears his throat, disapprovingly shifts his mouth, and then rises to his feet. He returns to his bag and digs through its contents. There he finds a condom, a strip of leather embedded with what looks like cruel spikes, and a black blindfold. The blindfold isn't novel, but at the moment, its gleaming satin is as threatening as a smiling knife.

"Spread your thighs." Keith seats himself at the end of Shiro's legs, setting aside everything but the blindfold. "What can I touch?"

"Whatever you want," Shiro promises. "I said I was okay with most things."

"You can be vague about your life all you want, but not about what happens here."

Something about that is scathing. "You sure you didn't talk to Coran?"

Keith snaps the blindfold onto Shiro's face without giving an answer. The room is snuffed out except for Keith's wandering hands, and for a split-second, Shiro can only register Keith's dense breathing.

Keith's controlled nature makes Shiro smile, and apparently, Keith see. Shiro receives another blow, the leather cracking against his ribs and making his blood flow faster. He focuses on the prickling after-burn as the crop drags over his tenting cock. The implied threat presses his navel down like an invisible hand.

Shiro wars against another urge to reach for Keith. He doesn't know how to engage in sex without touching the other party, striving to make them feel good too. Emotionally, he's never been a virtuoso, but he's always made up for it on the mattress, in the shower, or even along a cramped backseat.

Keith wants him to forgo that, but it's so much easier to examine everyone else's details. His own desires are peeling like water-stained wallpaper. He can't decipher the details. There's a chance he shouldn't.

"I want to touch you," Shiro confesses. He adds the title like an afterthought. "Master."

An army of toothy spikes smear down his chest in reply, and Shiro's nipples harden at the sinister sensation. It's light, but his hindbrain insists it could shred him like tissue paper.

"You and the rest," Keith mutters. The blindfold could be sharpening his other senses, but Keith sounds breathless, deprived. "Touch yourself for me, Daddy. If you do it right, then I might help."

The pacing has shifted. Shiro wonders if Keith is newer than he let on, and he tenses at the thought, wonders about Keith's age and his place in the world. Thinking. Right. He's not supposed to do that.

Keith's fingers hook the elastic of his briefs, and Shiro fluidly lifts his hips, waiting for his prick to bounce free. When it does, he reaches to stabilize his heavy cock, wrapping his fingers around the thick hilt and absently stroking its curve from base to tip. The touch makes his hips buck, forces his slit to drool onto his stomach, but Shiro doesn't stop. He maintains his leisurely touches, breathing hot and thick.

"Condom," Keith mutters, his gloved hand brushing aside Shiro's tight fist. "I'm going to touch you."

Keith's fingers expertly close around his cock. It twitches, begging for tight heat, and Keith's breathing loses its rhythm. He eagerly pets his thumb along the underside vein, and Shiro is utterly entranced.

As if on cue, Keith rolls on the pre-lubricated latex with deft hands. Shiro can't battle himself any longer. When Keith grips him again, he exhales in relief and fucks upward into Keith's warm touch. Rather than scold him for being a bad Daddy, Keith pumps him in return, twisting his wrist at the base and only changing speed to rub his palm along the head.

"You want me to sit on it, Daddy?" Keith asks, unbothered when Shiro loosely seizes his wrist. He scoots closer and grinds against the globes of Shiro's ass, desperate for some kind of friction.

"Yes." All Shiro can feel is that gloved hand, the satisfying presence of Keith hovering between his knees. There's so much potential there. "You'd look good riding me, Master."

"I bet you think someone like me should feel lucky to have someone like who could you raw me on the job, but you're the lucky one. You're lucky to have me."

Keith's hand quickens with his words. His breathing stutters over air, and Shiro thrusts harder to match him. A sloppy wet smack follows, and Keith grips Shiro's knee.

"I know I'm lucky," Shiro promises. "I'm so lucky to have a master like you."

"That's what I want to hear, Daddy. You're behaving so well for me."

Though he's at risk of coming, Shiro continues to lift his hips, continues to show Keith what he could to do to his soft damp holes. He thinks he might know how his cock looks slipping between Keith's fingers, and the mental image almost ends him.

Unable to resist, Shiro arches an eyebrow. "Is this what you want, Master?"

Keith pushes back one of Shiro's knees, rubbing harder against Shiro for relief. "I told you not to ask questions."

"Because I think you're the one who might want to behave."

"That's not – "

"When was the last time you were fucked?" Shiro taunts. "I can tell, Master. You want me to fuck you."

Keith ceases his stroking and tugs off the blindfold. Shiro expects the same disinterested look from before and possibly a goodbye, but Keith simply resumes jerking, eyes starry and gasping fast. Shiro sits up at the scene. He knows that look well and urgently wraps his fingers around Keith's hand to help. Keith seizes Shiro's shoulder, steadying them.

"You look really fucking good," Keith whispers as he leans in. He brushes his mouth against Shiro's but refuses to kiss him. "Get on the bed."

Keith releases Shiro's cock as if burned and stands up, shifting uncomfortably. The latex shorts can't be comfortable if he's aroused, but Shiro likes the idea of Keith denying himself pleasure.

He climbs onto the bed and settles on his back, expectantly watching Keith who stalls. Shiro gestures with a two-finger come hither, and Keith accepts the challenge by crawling onto the edge of the mattress. The bag of toys is forgotten on the table, and Keith reoccupies the space between Shiro's thighs. The only difference now is that he's leaned over Shiro's chest, close. Keith presses his face against Shiro's neck and returns his hand to his cock. He rubs his fist along the full length, eagerly rocking against Shiro's body.

"I could be inside you right now," Shiro whispers. "Fucking you stupid and making your little hole gape. I know it pisses you off, too. You took one look at me and knew you wouldn't be able to do your job."

Keith groans, his breath hot and damp against Shiro's skin. "Shut up. Just shut up."

Shiro turns his head and murmurs into his ear. "I don't think you want me to shut up, baby. You're hoping I'll take what I want, right? But I won't. You have to tell me exactly what you want."

Keith's hips pitch faster. "Fuck, fuck."

"You could press your dick against mine like this," he encourages, hearing the devil on his tongue. "Don't you want to get off with me, baby? Isn't that what good boys want?"

There's a chance Keith might unhinge and begin beating his chest with both fists, but Shiro is willing to run the risk. See, Keith is gasping like he's riding him raw, but as much as he wants it, he doesn't tap out.

The fact he refuses to break makes Shiro's balls draw even tighter. His oncoming climax clenches like a tightly balled fist and Shiro grapples for a piece of Keith's harness. He plants both feet onto the bed and smooths his hand from Keith's solid stomach to his chest. Shiro knows the twining sensation well, knows he's about to give it all up for Keith.

"Close," Shiro warns, wondering if Keith will make him hold back. "Close, close."

"Good, Shiro. Be my cum slut," Keith purrs, fingers dipping down to momentarily squeeze one of the man's balls. He swiftly returns to his sloppy hand job. "Give it to me, Daddy."

The yearning in that final order bunts Shiro over the edge. His thighs clench and he tightens his grip on the harness. Panting rough and loud, his balls empty and fill the condom with his thick load. The orgasm is punishing. It wrings out his nerve endings and tightens his muscles, but Shiro mutes his loudest shout.

"Fuck," Shiro murmurs, forcing his quivering muscles to relax.

Also catching his breath, Keith doesn't move from on top of Shiro for several moments. When he does, their chests and thighs reluctantly pull apart, sticky from sweat.

"You're basic," Keith finally says, harsh and accusing. He struggles to untangle their limbs. "You're basic, but you're a menace."

Lifting a single finger, Shiro lies there and lets himself swim in the post-coital warmth that drapes him like a weighted blanket. Regret threatens to follow, but Shiro combats it. He watches Keith instead, vision vaporous but still capable of discerning whether or not Keith is going to murder him and take his wallet.

"I'm getting water," Keith announces and slides off the bed. "Want one?"

"Please," Shiro croaks. He's still living outside himself, but his senses return faster than he'd like. Eventually, he sits up. "I feel like I might have pushed a boundary or two."

"Yeah, well." Keith doesn't make it a complete thought.

"I'm sorry."

Keith rejoins Shiro on the mattress without accepting or rejecting the apology. If they weren't still trying to steady their breathing, then it would be silent. Both sip as a self-conscious haze floods the room. Shiro knows he has to do better. He opens his mouth to break the ice, but Keith interrupts him with a cough.

"It's fine," Keith says, clipped. "Do me a favor and keep whatever you're thinking to yourself."

"You're hot," Shiro says before he can register Keith's request. Realizing what he said, he exhales. "I mean, you're more than hot. You're something else entirely."

"Wrong. You were paying me to be something else. I don't know what that was."

Shiro tries not to give Keith another once-over. "I liked it."

Keith grumbles something Shiro can't decipher. He ignores Shiro's sentimentality and tries to adjust his junk, pulling at a leg of his latex shorts and loudly sighing. It's not meant to be an invitation. Keith is uncomfortable, but the sight of the shiny bulging fabric reflecting light makes Shiro's cock stir as if he were a high schooler again. At the end of the day, he's a pleaser, and Keith needs someone to please him.

Keith side-eyes him. "What?"

He realizes Shiro's enjoying his misery, and after a thoughtful pause, palms himself between his thighs. When it begins to feel good, Keith spreads his legs wider, indulgently massaging and leaning back on an elbow. Shiro watches how his abdomen flexes, ripples with the movement that inspires animal attraction.

"You could ask," Shiro says, wanting Keith to further break his façade.

"I would, but gauging from what I just saw, I think you could be all talk."

Shiro, once again, is faced with his male ego. "And why is that?"

"You're timid," Keith says, matter-of-fact. "But I'll let you prove me wrong if you're up to."

Shiro allows himself five seconds to weigh his options. Before him is what he believes to be the ideal man, a being even Ovid couldn't have hope to sire.

Aloofly, he shrugs. "Famous last words."

Shiro seizes Keith by the shoulder, and with effortless power, rolls him onto his stomach. Shiro places his weight on Keith's back, and gripping the back of Keith's neck, effectively pins him. Keith snorts and worms beneath Shiro's frame, gripping the edge of the mattress in a half-hearted attempt to pull himself free. When he reaches out for the oblivion of the hotel room, he laughs.

"Your turn," Shiro purrs, fingers pushing into the hair along the back of Keith's head.

"I usually don't get turns." Keith attempts to look over his shoulder despite Shiro's hold on his head. "You know, I got you off. My job here is supposed to be done."

"You  _want_ a turn."

Keith's expression softens. He peers at the digital clock and then back at Shiro, chest rapidly rising and falling. He takes his job seriously. Shiro can guess that much, and this isn't exactly professional.

"Want it or not, I'd be working overtime."

"I'll pay for it, so you win here either way."

"Big talk." Keith stalls but only for a beat. "Fine but only because you're hung."

"You mean it wasn't my personality that got you hard?"

In the middle of rolling his ass back against Shiro's crotch, Keith stops and deflates. "Unless you're telling me about how much of a thirst trap I look like from behind, then you're not allowed to talk."

Shiro doesn't hide his smile. "Yes, Master."

The gratuitous harness and latex stockings remain, but Shiro slips off Keith's shorts, not minding the subtle sheen of sweat caused by the unbreathing fabric. It makes his skin gleam, catch the limited light like gilded armor. Shiro drags fingers along the tight skin, and he wants to kiss Keith, to devour that ever-sullen mouth while Keith's groans puff hot and damp along his tongue. It would be too intimate, though. Shiro is aware of their limitations together, and he'd like a second chance with Keith.

Shiro grabs Keith's hips and tugs him onto all fours.

He doesn't notice Keith is still wearing his gloves until he wraps his fingers around Keith's cock. Keith reaches behind himself and slips a hand into Shiro's hair, the material catching strands. Keith hums. He arches an eyebrow and fervidly rocks his hips toward the stroking fingers, fucking short and shallow. The glint in his eyes cools from fiery to glazed. Wanting to lock and load, Shiro tightens his pumping hand.

"Fuck," Keith says, a subconscious smile tugging at his mouth.

Shiro drags his free hand down Keith's lower back. "How far can I go?"

Keith considers but in a way that's for show. Dignity is everything here. He eventually lowers his chest, propping himself up on his elbows. "All the way. Fuck me like you have something to prove."

At that, Shiro smacks Keith's ass with a wide hand. The impact claps and earns Shiro a pleased moan from Keith. That's all Shiro needs to roll off the mattress and hunt down another condom and lube.

"I have different sizes," Keith informs him. "Check the front pocket, and don't use the strawberry flavored lube. It tastes like something cooked during the Chernobyl accident."

Shiro pulls the forbidden lube from the bag and reads the label. It features phallic cartoon strawberries each with their tongues lewdly hanging loose. "With a little imagination, it could be a good time."

"Nuclear accident roleplay starts at ten-thousand dollars per thirty minutes."

He returns the lube to the bag, and after some rifling, unearths the standard bottle. "Lucky for you I'm on a budget this week."

With a fresh condom snapped into place, Shiro returns to the bed. He kneels behind Keith, one hand steadying him by the hip, and aligns himself with that perfectly toned ass. Shiro spreads Keith wide, admiring how his little pink hole is practically begging to split around his cock. Shiro brushes his thumb across the pucker, making the ring flutter and Keith impatiently shift his weight.

"I'm not a virgin," Keith hoarsely reminds him, frustration seeping free. "I fucked myself before I even got here. Lube your dick and give it to me."

He snaps open the lube and drips cool jelly onto his fingers. "Watch your tone,  _Master_."

Shiro figures Keith is accustomed to the straight-to-business kind of fuck and a medley of one night stands. It paints their methods in different styles. Keith is Post-Impressionism and Shiro is Baroque.

Slick and hard, Shiro seizes Keith's hair again, mirroring what was done to him on the carpet. He holds Keith in place and rubs his wet cockhead along Keith's entrance, feeling him relax. Shiro presses forward and admires how he sinks inside Keith, gradually disappearing inch-after-inch. Keith's blush rim stretches around his flared tip, and his body gives and gives, greedy. Keith's breathing grows ragged, and as Shiro's cock continues to push, disappears all the way to that fat center, he whimpers between broken groans.

"Fuck," Keith rasps, reaching back to spread his ass so Shiro can slip farther inside. "Make me come with your dick. Please, make me come."

This was supposed to be a hand job-only scenario. Shiro hopes he isn't taking advantage of someone's situation, but his brain switches off and narrows in on Keith and only Keith. As much as he wants to drag out their fuck, make Keith remember him, Shiro can't resist hammering. He clings onto Keith's squared hips and snaps them back over and over, forcing Keith to the hilt as Keith chokes beneath him, shouting.

"Good, Daddy. S'fucking good." Keith bites his bottom lip and pumps his cock, beating his ass against Shiro's cock. Shiro suddenly nails his prostate and Keith groans, throaty and loud. "Hn!"

Out of everything Shiro guessed would happen, this was at the bottom of his list. Because he got off earlier, he's able to last longer, work Keith over so the man can finish with a cock beating his insides. Shiro drags a hand up Keith's latex-clad leg, pointedly grabbing where the meager fat spills over.

"Coming," Keith breathes, then stroking himself to Shiro's rhythm. "Coming, Daddy. God, what kind of dick –"

Stopping short, Keith chokes on saliva and bites back a scream. The sound is reminiscent of an injured animal, but there's no safe word. Keith jolts forward and shoots his load along his bare hand. He dips his damp back, and encouraging Shiro, spreads his thighs farther apart. Keith clenches his walls around Shiro's still-fucking shaft, and raggedly gasping, drags his cum-wet hand up his chest. He accidentally smears white across his leather harness, but he doesn't stop there. Keith sloppily sucks his fingers clean.

If Shiro didn't have more tact, then he would have whistled, maybe even googled a standing ovation.

Keith's ass is still smacking his thighs when Shiro finishes, the second orgasm not as intense, but somehow more satisfying. Though he'd like to, Shiro can't keep Keith as his cock warmer. The black lines swim from his vision, and Shiro carefully pulls out, relishing in Keith's appreciative gasp.

He doesn't look at Keith as he rolls off the condom and ties it shut, tossing the sagging latex into the nearby trash can. It's not because Shiro's ashamed. It's because he wants to kiss Keith, hard.

No longer connected, Keith has already dropped onto his side. He can't seem to catch his breath, which is a win in Shiro's book.

Clearing his throat, Keith inhales. "Shit."

Steeping in mutual mortification, both men settle on their spines and process what happened. Shiro's hands are on his chest as if he's resigned himself to a coffin, and Keith's loosely hang at his bruised sides.

"Drugs," Keith announces and sits up like a springboard. "I need drugs."

Shiro slowly blinks. "If you have weed, then I'll pay a lot of cash for a hit."

"I'm a callboy with a secret menu, not a monster. I won't make you pay for a hit."

Keith unzips the front pocket of his bag, unveiling a glass pipe and Altoids tin. He leans over the table and packs the bowl as if his life depends on it, eyes wild with determination.

"Why do you write erotica?" Keith asks, smoothing out the mood like rumpled sheets.

Shiro accepts they're going to ignore the elephant in the room. "Because it made me happy."

"Made," he observes.

"It still makes me happy." Shiro can't tell if he's telling the truth. "I'm just having an off month."

"There's power in making people wet when you're not there," Keith says, striking a match and carefully lighting the bowl. "That's what it's really about. Having more control than you've ever had in your entire life. It must be nice considering you had none only a few years ago."

Shiro lounges on his side. "You're assuming a lot right now."

Keith snuffs his match with a whip of the wrist. His stare carefully drifts back to Shiro, and he steps forward, shiny latex leggings gorging themselves on the dim light. "Am I? I read your bio."

"A Wikipedia page is bare bones. You won't get much from it."

"We all read the  _Crucible_  in high school, Shiro." Sucking down a mouthful of creamy smoke, Keith holds and then speaks through the cloud. "I can read between the lines."

Shiro pushes away his mild embarrassment. "It's something I'm good at, and it's better than wondering whether or not I want to go to grad school while driving a Geek Squad bug."

"Sounds like an oversimplification to me."

"What makes you say that?" Shiro asks.

"You got struck by lightning and then your career exploded." Keith muses for a long moment before he walks toward the bed, offering up the bowl. Shiro gratefully takes it. "There's an intersection there."

Shiro rolls his eyes. "One of the articles said Zeus gave me a fragment of his power."

"From oversimplification to egotistical. I bet you run hot and cold."

Filling his lungs with smoke, Shiro holds and then speaks through the dense vapor. "You're implying something."

"Nothing that isn't obvious to anyone who bothers to look."

Shiro admires Keith's mostly naked form in ruminating silence, finishing his turn. He pats the mattress and Keith takes the cue. "Do you dissect all of your clients like this?"

Keith falls back onto an elbow. "I'm not answering that. I don't want you to feel special."

Soon, the room reeks of smoldering kush and stale masturbation, a scent Shiro didn't fully recognize until he shared a dingy freshman dorm with Adam. He doesn't want to think about Adam right then, though.

Miraculously, when Keith presses his cheek into his palm and asks Shiro to talk about the progress of his book, Shiro finds it incredibly easy to turn off the Adam switch and be present. In that rare way, Keith feels like a singular design, someone who was handcrafted with a couture sensibility worth admiring.

This makes Shiro see the man in front of him and no one else, and to him, that's well worth the money.

 

**6.**

With other men, Shiro is sure Keith is good at his job. There has to be an incentive in beating the shit out of men cheating on their wives, but when Keith is with him, he struggles to play his role. It would be a lie to say Shiro doesn't relish in the thrill of breaking Keith. After all, he's a glutton for maintaining control.

Barely a week after his first Black Lion appointment, and without divulging any details to Coran's prying texts, Shiro is on his back again. He's blindfolded and already conjuring up ways to usurp Keith.

Unspoken anticipation began building the moment Keith entered the bathroom and reappeared in a fresh latex halter and red leather jacket. Keith wants to be manhandled, wants his strength broken down. He makes this obvious when he seizes Shiro's bangs and has the nerve to call his cock tiny and useless.

Keith presses his boot against Shiro's straining hard on, the weight falling fast and making Shiro grind his teeth. "I'm not even sure if it's there."

The pain nags, but Shiro rasps hard, breathing shallow and masking something akin to a growl. His ego is bruising like the welts along the backs of his thighs and the lingering thumbprints on Keith's waist.

Shiro continues to realize his masculinity is shallower than he once thought.

"You're mad you want to suck it," Shiro counters, words rough and breathless. "Is that your problem, baby? You have a whore throat that needs to be rawed and you're  _ashamed_."

Keith's boot remains firm, but Shiro hears him swallow. In his mind, he can see his Adam's apple rise and fall. Shiro knows he's found a fleshy spot he can press his fingers into and wrench open.

Without warning, fire plumes across Shiro's cheek.

The impact of the smack sends him onto his side. He catches himself on his forearm and mutters a breathless 'fuck,' blinking fast behind the satin blindfold. A condescending smile replaces his shock. It intensifies when Keith seats himself on Shiro's raised hip.

Keith's bulge is hot and heavy against him, but he rejects his need to acknowledge it, grabbing Shiro's forelock again and wrenching back his head so he can harshly whisper into his ear.

"You've got one place, Daddy, and it's always going to be right here under me."

Shiro licks a back molar. "Funny you say that when you were under me last week."

Keith slams Shiro's cheek against the carpet, breathing hard. Apparently, someone else has a few control issues, and Shiro suddenly understands why Keith asked him if he liked to wrestle.

Shiro throws back his shoulder and hip to escape Keith's weight.

His position change is unexpected, violently quick. Keith slips and drops onto his lap with a weak bounce and Shiro tugs off the blindfold. Keith is now an imposing villain on top of him, glaring down with trained disgust that makes Shiro's dick twitch. The decorative collar around Keith's throat is black leather, a cheeky invitation. Shiro reaches for it like a pair of reins, but Keith snatches his wrist and battles it back with bared teeth. Strong or not, Shiro manages to shove aside Keith's flexing arm.

He grabs Keith's opposite shoulder and ruthlessly rolls them onto their sides, hitting the carpet with a dead thud. As soon as Keith lands, he grunts and lithely wraps his thighs around Shiro's waist. To keep Shiro from climbing on top of him, he grabs his throat, but Shiro effortlessly pushes against Keith's hold.

"I'll admit you're pretty strong," Shiro says, voice strained from choking.

Keith tightens his grip on Shiro's neck and smiles. "You're  _okay_."

Shiro grapples onto Keith's wrist and pries it from his throat, noting how his strength makes Keith's eyes brighten. Shiro wrestles the limb above Keith's head and finally heaves himself onto the smaller man.

"Daddy," Keith coos.

Shiro answers with the same condescending tone. "Baby."

 

**7.**

Keith comes screaming, Shiro's hand smacked over his mouth as the headboard relentlessly pounds the wall.

Shiro considers the odds Keith is faking, playing the porno. Whether or not Keith's maintaining his hard-on while being battered doesn't dissuade this thought, but then Keith shudders, nails digging into Shiro's biceps and threatening to cut flesh. Keith shouts and prematurely comes inside the condom, startling them both and making Keith flush. Shiro furrows his brow in surprise but continues to mercilessly thrust forward, making a point to fuck until he himself is done, too. Keith's display makes coming quick work.

"Did you really?" Shiro asks when they finish.

Groaning in disbelief, Keith breathes like a scared rabbit. "If you ever want to hire me again, you'll stop now."

Shiro clears the laughter from his throat. "My lips are sealed."

Keith rolls onto his stomach, attempting to army crawl for the bottle of water on the nightstand. His fingers scrape the glass, but Shiro presses his mouth to his shoulder and effectively stops him. Keith begins to speak, likely the start of a protest, but he sags and presses his forehead against the bed.

"Back of the neck," he mutters, muffled by the comforter.

Shiro chuckles against Keith's warm skin. "Anywhere else?"

"Between the shoulders."

Familiarity follows, but Shiro can't place the mood. The warmth between them has a name, and he manages to ponder for several seconds before it returns to him.

It's intimacy.

Shiro forgot what intimacy felt like. He does his best to shake intrusive thoughts about how his past life with Adam relates to the current tone, but he can't. It removes him from the dizzying headspace, and when he plants a weak kiss against Keith's preferred spot, the kiss doesn't rove. Shiro sighs and pushes away from Keith's relaxed form. Anyone would know better than to explore intimacy with a hired lay.

Keith takes the hint. He reaches back and pats Shiro's shoulder, even rubs the densest part of his bicep, but he doesn't linger either. With incredible agility, he slips off the bed to find his clothes.

Shiro realizes that might have read as rejection. "You don't have to go right now."

"I'm not," he says, reassuring. "My ass is cold. That's all."

Discomfited by his own transparency, Shiro rubs his forehead.

"You know," Keith says and stops dressing to glance out the hotel's broad windows. "I've never loved this city, but at night, Elliott Bay does a good of job making me think I could."

"Are you from here?" Shiro asks, watching Keith shimmy into a pair of baggy Adidas sweatpants. He begins his own hunt for pants.

"Hold on."

Keith lifts a finger and crouches down in front of the stocked mini-fridge. He retrieves a Michelob Ultra and slides open the balcony door, then letting himself outside. Filling his lungs, he takes a seat on a chair and lights a clove, still wearing his latex top like a second skin. Keith twists open the bottle cap, and discerning Shiro's dumbfounded expression through the door, points to the empty seat next to him.

"I'm from East Las Vegas. A lot of foster homes." Keith draws both legs onto the chair. "Whether or not you wanna – if you're from there – you're hit by a bug to perform."

"Is that what this is?" Shiro asks as he finally sits.

"Not sure," he admits and tilts back his head, rolling his shoulders until something pops. "At the end of the day, this is money. I think people overthink sex work when it's the oldest trade known to man."

"Do you sleep with everyone?" Shiro asks but frowns at his own invasive question. "Probably shouldn't have asked that. It's none of my business."

"It's not, but I'll tell you anyway." Keith lifts two fingers, his head still back. "I've gone all the way on the job with two people. You included. It's not a part of the package. I'm picky about the balls that smack my ass."

Shiro's mouth slants into a smile. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"You were someone else before all of this, weren't you?" Keith asks, violently shifting the camera away from himself. "What was that guy like?"

"Scared shitless," Shiro says without hesitating. He's thought about it too many times not to know. "He wasn't a weak guy. Just unsure of everything except the ticking clock."

Keith levels his chin and swallows beer. "A lightning strike cured that?"

"Seemed like it for a while."

He leans back in his chair, shoulders falling. "Wherever you are there you are."

"That's one way of putting it."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but have you had therapy?"

"I've had some," Shiro admits, unafraid of the topic. "On and off while sick. I went again after the lightning strike, but it was to get over my partner leaving me while I was sick, not the electrocution."

Keith bristles, surprising Shiro. "If he went into the relationship knowing you were sick and still backed out, then he wasn't worth your time."

The young idealism makes him ache for his early twenties. "We were young when Adam made that promise. People grow up, want different things from life, but it's one thing to know that and one thing to know that  _and_  accept it."

"It still hurts, doesn't it?" Keith asks, watching him with cerebral haziness.

"Every fucking day." He tries to laugh off the exposé, but when the hurt is too transparent, he leans over his knees and rubs the back of his neck. "People never warn you about how heartbreak can be like mourning. Sometimes it doesn't go away. It just changes its shape and becomes easier to live with."

"Heartbreak is a loss. It makes sense to feel that way."

Shiro continues to rub his neck, staring down the balcony pavement. "When you end up with someone, be careful. Don't put the cart before the horse. Don't tell yourself the person is perfect."

Keith leans over his own knees and touches Shiro's wrist. "You know, Shiro, you really do just seem like a good guy in a weird slump."

"What makes you say that?"

He lifts and drops his shoulders. "I've met way too many bad men not to know how to spot the difference."

Shiro ponders, eyes trained on Keith's touch. A quiet moment flowers between them, and Shiro rises to his feet. He leaves to retrieve a beer from the fridge, returning to Keith's side as the sun begins to rise.

 

**8.**

In their next session, Shiro kisses Keith while fucking him on his side.

Keith wavers at first, but he melts against Shiro's mouth. He was supposed to tie Shiro up with his signature red rope, but they ended up on the mattress instead, rocking against one another before 11 PM.

"Shiro," Keith whispers, gasping against the pillow. "You make me feel so fucking good."

Shiro murmurs Keith's name through a groan, mouth settling on his shoulder. "You deserve to feel good."

"Making  _you_  feel good was supposed to be my job."

"You're doing your job." He wraps his fingers around Keith's dick and strokes. "This is exactly what I want."

  

**9.**

Shiro's black Nikes beat along a soft dirt trail, creating fleeting clouds as he maintains his trained cadence beneath the Washington Park Arboretum's droopy magnolias.

Even before the lightning strike, Shiro obsessed over his health in hopes of giving the universe a middle finger. This catapulted into an obsession after his terminal illness was redacted. Overnight he became an expert at lengthy cardio, leg day, and calculating proper micronutrients. To him, it only made sense. He had been given a second chance, and if he was going to live, then he was going to make life high quality.

It wasn't simply physical health, though. Running beneath the multi-colored canopy and seeing other people live their lives released endorphins, eased his tight shoulders, and cleared the cobwebs for fresh inspiration. It wasn't often Shiro saw someone he knew, but he didn't have an abundance of friends in the area. The experience was private, a comfort accompanied by the beat of a finely curated playlist.

This is why, when he spots Keith bent over with his headphones hanging free, Shiro loses his footing.

He tugs out a headphone, a brow raised. "Keith?"

Keith registers his name, straightening his back and glancing from left to right. His gaze falls on Shiro, and it pulses open, conveying the very surprise that tripped Shiro.

Shiro wonders if Keith frequents the park, and if so, whether or not they've passed each other before. Keith is the kind of man who makes the late man stop his power walk from the coffee shop to the office. The geometry of his cutting face, how his lips weigh heavy with unsaid thoughts, and those almond-shaped eyes wild with lavender are calling cards for a man who wants to admire another stunning man.

Surely, Shiro would have noticed.

With a guilty expression, Keith hesitantly waves at Shiro. He's been caught out of character and outside of his person suit, but Shiro isn't sure if Keith ever wore one for him. He's straddled the border from the beginning of their arrangement, bleeding from the seams and puddling on several hotel room floors.

Shiro maintains his distance, slowing his pace. "Am I allowed to talk to you off duty?"

"Doesn't make a difference to me," Keith says, his smile wry. "But my break is over. I'm not going to stop running."

"I can work with that."

Keith returns to his sprightly cadence, pocketing his headphones to let Shiro know he's listening. "You live around here?"

"Only a five-minute drive away. Do you go to school around here?"

"I just like the quiet," Keith says as if it's the simplest thing in the world. It's not an answer, but Shiro knows better than to push. "How's the writing going?"

"Better." Shiro matches Keith's pace. "My agent finally removed the laser sight from the back of my head."

"You're welcome."

"Don't say that until you've read the book."

Keith appears smug. "Was that a threat?"

"Not exactly," Shiro says and rounds the corner for a nearby water fountain. "Some of it's a little transparent. That's all. Hold on. Let me refill my bottle."

"Do I get an advance copy?"

Shiro's stomach plummets.

It's been years since he last experienced this specific self-consciousness about his writing. Shiro often navigated it whenever Adam read his drafts, fearing the moment his boyfriend would finally see their relationship's unsavory nuances stitched throughout the handwritten edits. The difference here is he isn't dating Keith. Not to mention, Keith knows he's being used for inspiration. It's technically a paid deal.

Either way, there's no getting around Keith's right to an advance copy.

"I don't see why not."

"I won't forget," Keith promises and pauses when Shiro stops for water.

"What are you doing after this?" Shiro asks. He wonders who spoke for him as soon as the words hang themselves from his mouth.

"Shower. Food. Class." Keith takes a swig from his own bottle. "Why ask?"

"I was wondering if you'd wanna grab coffee."

It's not like Shiro to self-sabotage like this. He knows there's a risk in asking his callboy out on an unofficial date, but he can't help himself.

Keith ruminates, scratching his cleanly shaven jaw with a single finger. "I've got a couple minutes."

"Is that enough time for a drink?"

"No." He nods toward a nearby grassy lawn woven between tracks. "But I might be able to give you an IOU."

Shiro's chest thuds. "In public?"

Keith slants his hips, rolling his eyes. "It's not what you're thinking. I'll show you if you hurry up."

With his filled bottle in one hand and Keith's fingers curling around the other, Shiro is guided across the lawn toward a grouping of crabapple trees. The horizontal branches are nearly naked but still veil them from the passing runners. It's the middle of the week and a cold snap, too, meaning they're mostly alone.

Shiro isn't a prude, but he also relishes in public decency. He gives Keith an expectant look and patiently waits for his cue.

"We're not in a hotel room," Keith reminds him and creeps a hand up Shiro's forearms. The touch is foreign from Keith. There's hungriness in it. "Don't make me tell you what to do."

"Oh," Shiro murmurs, realizing he was unaware of his own conditioning. He concentrates on Keith's roving hand. "I see."

"I don't do this with anyone else off the clock," he promises, knowing exactly how to play Shiro.

"Yeah?" Shiro asks, voice softening. "No one else? Are you sure?"

Shiro drops his bottle onto the grass and Keith follows his example. Hesitancy appears between them like two mismatched magnets, but Shiro muscles through the initial resistance. He grabs Keith by the hip, and leaning in as if welcoming a lover home from a long business trip, tugs them chest-to-chest.

Keith's eyes cloud with impatient desire. "Uh-huh."

Unable to help himself, Shiro presses Keith's back against the rough bark. He thrives when Keith's breathing skips and glides his fingers up Keith's throat, savoring the way his jawline cuts and how his pulse thrums like a trapped bird. Shiro taunts, intentionally pausing as if again second-guessing their kiss. He needs to see Keith want him as much as he wants Keith. After a frustrated spell, it works. Keith tilts his head to the side, expectant and clearing his throat. He's eager, aching for Shiro to touch him.

Shiro slots their mouths together, and the way Keith breaths in, as if filling his lungs for the first time after decades beneath the sea, tells Shiro everything.

Neither man closes his eyes until Keith smiles and Shiro can't fight the urge to smile back. Clipped laughter sputters between them, and Keith captures the end of Shiro's Adidas sweatshirt, pushing his hands beneath the fabric. They travel over his sculpted abdomen and slip around, not avoiding the sweat pooled along Shiro's lower back. The casual touch is unlike their time together in the hotel room, but Shiro prefers the change. He's touch starved, skin hungry for something that's mildly reflective of love.

"God," Keith murmurs against Shiro's mouth, fingers abandoning his torso for Shiro's hair. He curls them but doesn't make any commands. "You're the worst kind of client."

Shiro loathes the word, but he masks his aggravation, kissing along Keith's jawline with marring teeth and sucks. "Why's that?"

"You've never learned how to kiss someone you can't love."

 

**10.**

For anyone with common sense, the free kiss is an obvious error. The oversight is quite literally in broad daylight, but for some reason, neither Shiro nor Keith dares to address it.

They exchange numbers, Keith unable to give Shiro eye contact as he hands back his phone after inserting his digits into a blank contact page. There could be a business rationale for giving them to Shiro, but Keith doesn't bother threading together convincing bullshit. He wants to give Shiro his number. That's it.

One kiss, and suddenly, Shiro is writing two chapters in a single sitting. One kiss, and suddenly, Shiro is answering text messages from Keith informing Shiro he doesn't have class that afternoon, so if he's not too busy writing, then maybe they can get coffee. One kiss and Shiro is up at 2 AM with his dick out, jerking it to Keith's nudes featuring wet fingers and psychology textbooks stacked in the background.

 **Shiro**  
[1:14 AM] Come over. I'll pay for the cab.  
  
[1:14 AM] And whatever else.

 **Keith  
**[1:14 AM] i can drive myself

[1:14 AM] but you'll owe me breakfast

 **Shiro  
**[1:15 AM] I get to meet your son?

 **Keith  
**[1:15 AM] yeah he's heard a lot about you

 **Shiro  
**[1:15 AM] Sounds serious.

Serious enough that when Keith is tied up Shibari-style, rigged on his knees with his ass high and face pressed against the ground, he calls Shiro 'babe' and asks him to fuck his ass raw.

"You're the only person I've fucked in a year," Keith confesses, breathing hard. "I'm clean. Fuck me."

Shiro does, but this time it's not performative on either end. Keith is groaning hard into the mattress, but he doesn't scream or work extra for a hefty tip. He's much quieter, full of hushed profanity and gentle gasping that evolves into murmuring Shiro's name. He's begging for help, for some kind of absolution.

Rather than keep his hands to himself, Shiro can't keep his hands off Keith, touching every expanse of flesh. He tunes into Keith's breathing, hunts for pulses, drags his thumbs along expanding ribs. They don't know each other, not really, but Shiro kisses Keith's navel, kisses the pubic hair along his hill. It's as if they've been lovers for centuries, torn apart and just reunited after an incinerating universal collapse.

"How are you like this?" Keith mutters against Shiro's chest, fucked out and half-awake.

Shiro reminds himself it's hormones, but they're infamously bewitching either way. They're essentially human magic, the thing that threads hearts together and makes existing without someone torturesome.

  

**11.**

Mid-afternoon the next day, after showering together, making out until the birds chirped, and finally, sleeping, Shiro finds himself seated on the couch with his laptop and coffee. He's writing as fast as he can, brain burning quicker than his fingers can type, and all while Keith is still asleep in the room over. Shiro canceled his morning meeting with Coran, but he promised him he would be in touch that evening. One allusion to sex and Coran sent him 34 thumbs up emojis and a mustache-twirling selfie.

Shiro doesn't notice Keith waking up, pilfering through his overnight bag or even brushing his teeth. In fact, Shiro doesn't notice Keith until the man speaks up, voice breaking through his low volume music.

"I'm a psychology major," Keith says from the bedroom doorway. "I go to WSU."

Shiro snaps his gaze to Keith. He's in briefs and shirtless beneath a red zip-up hoodie, hair still slightly disheveled. With Shiro's attention, Keith continues.

"My adopted dad is Kolivan from Marmora Tech, the one that makes droids for the government. We moved out here when his company changed locations. I started doing sex work because he tracks my expenses. He believes in self-discipline, and I guess I do too, but I also really like some privacy."

Shiro stares at him over his computer, processing. He saves face and leans back into the couch. "We can talk. I made coffee. The creamer should still be on the counter."

There's a lot to unpack there, but mostly, he's fucking the heir to a proverbial empire.

"I know what you're thinking," Keith says, already walking into the kitchen. "Rich college kid uses his foster family background for sympathy points and a fat tip, but I wasn't adopted until I was fifteen. By then, it feels kind of over. You're defined by the system, to begin with, but the teen years solidify it."

Already shutting his laptop, Shiro stands. "I didn't say that."

Keith finds the mug Shiro set out for him. "No one ever has to."

Shiro ambles into the kitchen. It doesn't take a genius to know what happened. They were vulnerable together in a way that wasn't staged, and now Keith is internally melting. He's young, Shiro reminds himself. He's young and has clearly only known stability for a handful of years. If Shiro is going to do this with Keith, then he has to be careful. He thinks he can be. He's not emotionally unintelligent.

"Keith," Shiro says, tone gentle. He watches the man fill his mug before speaking again. "I appreciate you telling me all of this, but you don't have to give me your past like it's ammo."

"I figured you might as well know what you're dealing with." He pours a thin line of cream into the steaming black, and a second later, a creamy blossom appears. "You want something out of this that isn't sex. I can feel it, you know? It's how you made me come last. Selflessly. I called you basic for a reason."

Shiro doesn't know how to answer the second half of that. It's true. He wants something else with Keith, but there's still Adam. Five incredibly formative years of his life would have to finally retire.

Shiro decides to address that later. "What I'm dealing with here is a person."

"To be fair, a very fucked up person."

"That's not fair. Everyone is fucked up."

The profanity feels weird on Shiro's tongue, but he runs with it, doing his best to level with Keith in a moment that suggests Keith might flee.

"I don't know how you did it," Keith says, moving on as his nose tinges pink. "You got a second chance and turned yourself around. I've got mine, and I'm beating the shit out of horny old men, bored out of my mind in college. Maybe if I'd grown up more adjusted this would be easier, maybe even clearer."

"Given what you've told me, I think you're allowed to be maladjusted for a while." Shiro grabs Keith's shoulder and draws him near. "You're in college. You're doing more than enough right now."

Keith lets himself be tugged, even pressing his navel against Shiro. "That always sounds better than it feels."

"I'm missing nuances, I know," Shiro assures him, face serious. "But I like what I know about you right now, and we met on a messy note from my end first. I can handle what you throw at me. I promise."

"You're still a mess," he says fondly and slurps from his mug.

"Exactly." Shiro lowers himself onto a forearm, still pressed to Keith but playfully looking up at the man. "So how about you stop giving me permission to judge your mess when I still need to sort out my own?"

"You're making light of this," Keith warns.

"I had to make light of death my whole life. It's a habit." Shiro rights himself and nods toward the living room. "Come on. Sit with me. Tell me more things about yourself."

Reluctant at first, Keith seats himself across from Shiro on the couch. He divulges small things, like how he doesn't know who his biological parents are, so Shiro shouldn't even bother asking, and where he wants to go with his degree, which is to be determined. They're things Shiro let himself grow out of touch with, but hearing Keith re-centers him, reminds him he's not as far away from twenty-two as he believed.

Before taking Keith out for breakfast, Shiro sucks him off.

It's an unspoken thank you, but also, he's unable to handle the casualness of Keith's briefs and open red sweater. Keith comes down his throat, groaning Shiro's name at the ceiling while he fucks his throat. He recovers the way only a college kid can, and sloppily kissing Shiro, shoves the older man onto his back.

"Your turn."

When Keith bends over to tease his cock with wet lips, naked from the waist down and briefs hooked onto an ankle, Shiro has to fight the urge to bust. He thinks about lightning, dying, and loneliness. He thinks about everything that makes him feel the exact opposite of what Keith makes him feel when together.

After eggs benedict and discussing Shiro's deceased parents over more coffee, the men part ways. They humor a potential dinner date through Keith's car window, but by the time Keith is back in his student apartment, supposedly writing a paper, they're texting nonstop.

 **Keith  
**[3:02 PM] you make me feel good. no one else has ever made me feel this good.

 **Shiro  
**[3:04 PM] Come back over. I'll make you feel good again.

Keith doesn't respond, leaving Shiro on that insidious 'read' and making him wonder if he overstepped boundaries. He's a romantic, even if he's never been good at the long haul part of romance. Shiro wonders if he was overbearing and the gnawing thought puts a stop to his work, forces him to check his phone an obnoxious amount of times. To stop himself, he turns on his ringer volume. He'll know when it makes noise, but the lack of hope every time he continues to check his phone crushes him. Shiro turns off the volume, texts Matt for the sake of having his phone vibrate, and decides he should cook a real dinner.

While Shiro can't bake worth a damn, he can sear a steak in cast iron.

He's tying a bundle of rosemary together with kitchen twine when the doorbell chimes. Belatedly remembering his appointment with Coran, Shiro groans and fetches an extra steak from the fridge, tossing it onto the counter before wiping his hands on a towel. Thankfully, he didn't succumb to his sweatpants.

Thunder erupts above his house, and Shiro pauses in the center of his foyer, turning to glance out the living room window and watch tree branches whip through the surly autumn wind. Incoming lightning erects the hair along his arms and neck, but he shakes off his fear of static, tugging open the front door.

"Hey, Shiro."

Keith is standing on his porch with a densely packed bag hanging off his shoulder. Puffy thunderstorm clouds loom behind him, and as Shiro considers his reaction, thunder continues to rumble overhead.

Crossing his arms, Shiro leans against the doorframe. "When you didn't reply, I thought I might've overstepped something."

Already letting himself inside, Keith pauses midway through the door and pulls Shiro down into a kiss, mouth opening on contact. His tongue pushes between Shiro's teeth and lightning veins the sky.

 

**12.**

Shiro doesn't register when he and Keith stop meeting up at the hotel, but there's an evening when it occurs to him they're never going back. What they are can't be undone, even if it isn't labeled.

"Half the time I don't know what I'm doing in school," Keith whispers, curled against Shiro's chest in the cool dark of the bedroom. "I get the grades, but none of it feels real. Everyone else had permission to figure their shit out before I did. It's like I'm the psychology major parody. I'm only studying it because I want to figure myself out and _then_  help other people. It's so embarrassing."

Shiro remembers his senior year and the boiling uncertainty that halted his desire to do well on his Capstone until the last minute. He was a mess back then. A bigger one than he is now.

"No one really has it together. No one does it  _right_. What happens is people get better at hiding their panting at the finish line."

"Everyone tells me that, but I feel like no matter what I do people are going to find out there's something wrong with me. They'll read my honors thesis and see it's fucked. They'll leave before I finish speaking."

Shiro pushes a piece of hair behind Keith's ear. "I'll be here when you finish speaking."

"I have a lot to say."

"Well," he whispers. "I guess I can finally say I have a lot of time."

 

**13.**

Shiro isn't a stranger to love, but Keith doesn't inspire the love he thought he knew.

Whether or not it's because Keith is vibrant and juddering with unsung emotion, Shiro can't tell, but there's unrelenting passion that makes Shiro heartsick.

Keith speaks like driving down an easy gravel road, and there's something about his tenor, his thoughtless quips, that tatter Shiro's cartilage. Shiro aches because it's healing, and Keith leaves him wondering how sick he's been the whole time. Maybe he was still dying and didn't know it. Maybe the doctors were wrong, and it wasn't lightning that cured him. See, Keith makes him _feel_  alive. He wants to really live.

He wants to write, too.

As soon as Keith falls asleep beside him, Shiro's laptop is balanced on his thighs, fingers dancing across the worn keys. His writing is no longer about yearning but urgency. Sven  _must_  tell Akira he loves him. They _must_  fuck as soon as Akira claims he loves him, too.

Not fucking for the sake of fucking either, but the kind of fucking that makes grown men cry until they either fall asleep or get it up again and fuck harder than before, nails tearing into each other's skin.

It works because Keith's person is as chaotic as Shiro's feelings for him. Sometimes they're Canova's Cupid and Psyche, preserved by marble and inspired by a story that can only begin in the dark. Other times, they're Mars and Venus with Keith being a burning entity that loves to battle his hidden feelings.

One second Keith is balanced and parsing pages of his senior thesis, and the next he's irritably running fingers through his hair, accusingly asking Shiro why he can't take five minutes away from his writing to  _listen_  to him. Sometimes he even wrenches the computer from under Shiro's hands, but he always sets it down immediately. Often, he begs Shiro to let him give him head because that will make Shiro forgive him. It's a disquieting and ever-oscillating cycle Shiro regularly brings to Keith's attention.

"I don't want to talk about it," Keith says, breathing hard and leaned over the kitchen counter. "Don't make me fucking talk about it."

"I'm not  _making_  you talk about it. I'm pointing it out, so maybe you can work on it yourself."

Keith's face sinks onto his folded arms. "I knew this would happen."

Shiro reminds himself he can do this, but then Keith confesses the horrors that make him the way he his. He mentions the repeated starvation, the man who held him down on olive flannel sheets, the oafish temporary parents and officers who called him a liar. Shiro reels back and readjusts his perspective.

He can do this, but God, he's afraid.

"Why the fuck should I expect you to be here tomorrow, Shiro?" Keith asks during a fight Shiro saw barreling toward them from miles away. It's what they do. Fights brew, appear with obvious telltale signs like how Keith subconsciously shoves back his bangs when irritated for no apparent reason. "What happens when I don't want your cock down my throat for once? What happens if I'm just a person?"

Shiro fights the implied insult. "You're not a warm hole. You know I love you."

"That's so easy for you to say." On his way to the bedroom, Keith shoves a kitchen chair onto its side with one arm. "Must be nice, Shiro!"

Shiro wants to help Keith reconfigure his knee-jerk responses and lack of faith in people. As dangerous as it is, Shiro wants to save Keith from Keith. While Keith is an open book, Shiro is open in only the ways he seeks to be. He likes honest conversation from others, but he doesn't enjoy dishing out his own truths.

When Shiro doesn't censor himself, it's usually after Keith breaks down with a beer in hand, sucking back tearful rage because boys don't cry, but especially not boys like Keith. He does it to alleviate Keith's shame, but he also does it because he can't imagine another person who would judge him less.

"I thought about killing myself after Adam left," Shiro admits.

They're swaying together on the porch swing. Shiro's head is settled on Keith's lap, and Keith is warm in Shiro's too big sweater, a hand clinging to a steaming mug of hazelnut coffee.

"I would've if I hadn't been electrocuted. I hated being a person. There was something so defeating about having to live with myself like that."

Keith leans over and kisses Shiro's forehead, hair falling in his face as he scratches Shiro's warm scalp. "I can't imagine a world without you in it."

"I can." He stares at Keith's stomach and shifts his mouth to the side. "There'd be less porn."

Keith laughs but groans at himself. "Don't make me laugh after talking about your suicidal ideations."

Shiro holds onto Keith's wrist and continues to push off with a socked foot, maintaining the slow and steady rhythm. He turns his head toward Keith's petting hand and kisses where his pulse hums.

"I didn't think I'd get this far either," Keith says and presses his cheek against Shiro's forehead. He deflates. "Being here with you makes me glad I did."

And for a brief second, Shiro thinks he hears the unspoken 'I love you.'

 

**14.**

Shiro submits his first draft on the day of the deadline, forking it over to Coran who floats across the office when his email app chirps. Keith is lounging on a nearby chaise and sucking on a clove, wearing his newest Dior jumper. He winks at Shiro before exhaling spicy smoke and sipping from his mug.

"Fantastic!" Coran says, and with the grace of a danseur, kneels in front of Keith. He gestures at him with both hands and bows. "We owe you our lives."

Keith ashes his clove and exhales, the noise laugh-like. "I didn't lift a finger."

"Pillow prince or not, Shiro could have never done this without you."

Clearing his throat, Keith coughs into his hand. "That's… That's not what I meant."

"He can be one, though," Shiro assures Coran.

"Oh, absolutely. I even saw it in his star chart."

The editing process goes as it did with the previous two books. There's an insidious lull of free time as Coran tears it apart followed by editing that devours segments of Shiro's life. Shiro's schedule is initially balanced by Keith's increasing thesis research, but as always, there's more of an absence on Shiro's end.

"I've been busy. I know."

The words slip out like a ghost. Though it had been ages, Shiro can taste the brine on that sentence, preserved in time from his days when he would argue with Adam.

"It's fine," Keith lies, flipping through his notes on the living room floor. "You have to work."

"I miss you," Shiro promises.

"I'm right here, babe."

"You know what I mean."

Keith glances up from his work and half-smiles at Shiro, his expression a note above sadness but not fooling anyone.

" _It's a short book tour, Keith. I'll be gone for two weeks at the most. You've got the keys, so you can have the run of the place."_

" _It's fine."_

And maybe sometimes it  _was_  fine. Shiro is aware he overthinks everything, even though no one would guess because his trajectory rarely sways off its initial path.

It's fine.

Fine.

So what  _is_  fine?

Fine is Keith quietly observing as the world loves Shiro with such scorching reverence it sometimes makes Shiro sleep through his alarm the next day. He can only pay attention to so many altars.

Fine is Shiro excusing the intrusive fans who send him erotic letters while feeling guilt close his throat. Keith reads them, laughs at words like 'engorged,' and then turns his heart into a tree shedding leaves.

The two men come back together at a bar that's nowhere near a bookshop signing or the café where Keith spends his evenings studying until his eyes sting. With drinks in hand, they seem fine, disclosing more of their pasts and eventually pressing their foreheads together before climbing into Red's backseat.

"It's fine," Keith murmurs beneath Shiro, voice unmistakably cracking in the dark. "I'm fine. Make it hurt, Shiro."

 

**15.**

And then it isn't fine because the appeal of gods is their fundamental humanity. The thing that sets them apart isn't wisdom or majesty but their conflagrating humanness, their ability to royally fuck up.

In hindsight, Shiro should have seen the end coming, but that would require introspection, looking outside the immediate now, which a lifelong terminal illness doesn't install in a person.

Two weeks before the book release, Keith is wringing his hands in the living room, pretending to watch the news while Shiro finishes answering emails in his office. They have plans to go out for drinks and maybe a late dinner, but Shiro is running an hour behind schedule, which has been the month's theme.

As soon as Shiro steps out of his office, Keith stands as if greeting a superior for a meeting.

"Did you read it?"

Shiro pauses, eyes shifting to the side. "Read what?"

Keith straightens his back at the reply, expression steeling over. Shiro remembers, and his brain scrambles for a recovery tactic. Keith's finished thesis is waiting in his email.

"I started it," Shiro says, trying to change the tone.

"Don't lie to me."

He exhales at himself. "I'm going to finish it, Keith. I've been choking on revisions this month. You know I'm not avoiding it because I don't care. You've worked hard, and I'm really proud of you."

"It's fine," Keith lies. "I get it."

Shiro recognizes the tone a mile away. This is one of the times when fine isn't  _fine_. "It's not, but I'll make it up to you. Tomorrow is dedicated to finishing your thesis."

"You can't finish something you haven't started." He grabs his jacket off the back of the couch, Chanel boots smacking the hardwood. "We should get going. I can't reschedule another reservation."

Adam had often called Shiro selfish.

Always in a passive tone, too, as if Adam were commenting on the fact molecules are fundamental building blocks of the universe. This had infuriated Shiro. Adam didn't know what it was like to wake up with dying muscles. Adam couldn't possibly know how looming death might make a man rightfully selfish, but that was the heart of it all. Shiro wasn't dying anymore, and he couldn't grasp onto living.

Shiro reads Keith's thesis, but Keith has already resigned himself to being a footnote. Even when Shiro attempts to engage with him about it, Keith picks at his yogurt at the breakfast bar and nods along, barely offering insight to his involved study on PTSD in adolescent adoption versus adoption in early childhood.

"I always knew you were smart," Shiro says, meaning it. "The smaller papers you let me read were good, but that felt like something I'd refer to if I needed a source for my own research."

Keith takes a bite and shrugs. "Don't ham it up."

Shiro wants to fix things. He wants to desperately. His advance readings had won rave reviews, and the incoming time off meant time to spend with Keith. He was even supposed to have dinner with Kolivan.

It feels salvageable until an interview lines up with Keith's thesis presentation. No matter how Shiro tries to renegotiate, there's no way to move schedules. It becomes Keith's paper or Shiro's publicity.

"It's one interview, Shiro!" Keith yells, slamming his backpack onto the dining room table. "All I'm asking is for you to break  _one_  meeting. I know it's a stupid undergraduate thesis, but come on. Don't make me beg."

"I tried, but the interview is important. I can't miss it, and you know you're wrong. Your thesis isn't stupid. That thesis is going to get you into a good grad school. Iverson's Columbia connection, remember?"

"Fuck Columbia." Keith massages his temples, and Shiro sees the tears. They're not sad or mournful either. They're furious. "How important am I to you? Like, seriously, Shiro."

Shiro's heart throttles. He's heard that line before. It goes for the throat, and he's already crossing the room to Keith. "You know how much you mean to me."

Lifting both hands and stepping back, Keith stops him. "I never ask for  _anything_  from you."

Shiro wishes that was a lie, but it isn't.

From the start, aside from initial business arrangements, Keith never asked for anything except maybe breakfast after having his asshole battered. Shiro grips the dining room table, feeling claustrophobic and much too big for his oversized house. He isn't sure why he has a house that large in the first place.

"I can't do anything about it. I can meet you directly after."

"Don't bother," Keith says, already striding toward the bedroom. "I'm sure you'll want to mingle with Lotor afterward."

"I know you're disappointed, but there's nothing I can do."

Keith turns around in the doorway, and without warning, something unhinges. A piece of Keith Shiro had willfully overlooked appears, ready to pilfer and destroy Shiro's heart if it means saving his own.

The tendency had manifested in subtle ways, soft ways, but Shiro watches the oncoming wave climb. He knows drowning is inevitable before the water can crash.

"Do you know what this is?" Keith asks.

"Enlighten me," Shiro asks, immediately regretting the sarcasm.

Keith wrinkles his nose.

"You got struck by lightning, and you lived, and you thought whatever freak chemical reaction that cured your disease was divine intervention, so the first thing that even slightly mattered afterward defined you. You keep telling yourself that thing is going to be what fuels you for the rest of your life, but that's not how any of this works. Death, sickness, and miracles fade, and once they do, the person you were before will still be standing in the water, rotting, and waiting for that conversation you're too afraid to give him."

Shiro refuses to hear him. He can't. He  _can't_.

"What do you know about being terminally ill, Keith?"

" _And what do you know about being terminally ill, Adam?"_

" _Right! Because I couldn't possibly know you without also being sick! Is that how it works, Shiro? Then expect to be lonely for the rest of your life!"_

Keith decks Shiro in the chest with a tight fist, stepping deeper into Shiro's bubble and panting. He points at him, drawing back a shoulder but fearlessly leaning in.

"You don't have to be struck by lightning to come back from the dead. I wasn't a person before I met Kolivan and started school. You have no idea who I am or what I've lost or how I feel. You fuck me. That's all you do, and maybe it feels good. Maybe it releases endorphins, but that's not loving me!"

Unfair.

It's unfair, and he wants to believe Keith knows it's untrue, too. Keith claiming they're all sex is a crime of passion and not something he genuinely believes.

"Then tell me!" Shiro yells, ignoring the throb in his chest. "Tell me how you feel, Keith!"

Keith grabs his shoulders as if he might yell again, and there's a split-second of affection, a moment when the pads of his fingers press with what Shiro knows is an amalgamation of unsaid thoughts and feelings. Keith lightly shakes him, hammering down a shout that seeps out. He pauses the tepid assault and looks up at Shiro with a gaze many could mistake as rage, but Shiro knows better. Keith is pleading, begging Shiro to do the heavy lifting here because he can't bear any more rejection. Foster care gave him plenty.

Keith wrenches back his hands and turns over a shoulder, striding toward his overnight bag. "I never should have come here. House calls. No one else at the club did that."

"Don't call our relationship a house call," Shiro warns, voice unsteady. "I wanted you here for more reasons other than letting you step on my head, and you wanted to be here for more than my money."

Keith tosses his sweatshirt at his bag and disappears into the bathroom for his toothbrush. "You wanted me here because Adam won't take you back and you're a lonely man!"

"Just admit you're afraid of loving me!" Shiro shouts.

Keith's satchel of toiletries flies through the door and lands neatly beside his bag. "Not until you admit you're mourning the person you were before."

"He was a dying man!"

"You're still that man!" Keith stops after raising his voice. As if the scolding had been directed at himself, he blinks and steps back. "I have to go, Shiro."

Shiro pinches the bridge of his nose. "I don't want you to go."

"I don't either, but this isn't good. This isn't okay anymore."

"This," Shiro echoes, wishing for once things weren't vague anecdotes he had to infer. "Call it what it is. Call it our relationship."

Keith swings his bag over his shoulder. "I'll text you."

As much as he wants to follow Keith, Shiro knows it would infringe on Keith's right to space. He doesn't leave the bedroom until Keith's engine turns over. Rubbing the back of his neck, Shiro steps into the living room and the emptiness weighs like a silencing spell. Even the dust motes seem suspended in time.

A whole glass of water is down his throat before he realizes Keith's advance copy is missing from the coffee table.

  

16.

 **Keith  
**[10:03 PM] …you're so good to me but i can't be who you need me to be. sometimes i think maybe you don't even want me or maybe you don't know what you want. i'm not patient enough. i don't get you the way adam did. if he could do it for years and i can't do it because of one missed project then i don't think i deserve you… i'm a difficult person, shiro… i hurt people and i was never what you needed and i don't know. it's not that surprising after everything, right? i'm young and pissed off. you have it so together.

Keith breaks up with him in a frantic text.

It's rambling and desperate, and Shiro only manages to read half of it before he closes the message and swipes to delete it, unable to finish reading the cyclic thoughts that circle the drain to one obvious point.

He's not coming back.

After taking a second to breathe, even sitting down on his bed, Shiro reopens a fresh message to Keith. Their history is deleted, but Shiro knows the backspace button doesn't work on human feelings. He types up a simple reply to put the whole situation to bed. A clean-cut feels like the only option they have now. Maybe it's selfish. No. It  _is_  selfish, but Keith was right. He can't deal with himself.

 **Shiro  
**[10:50 PM] It's okay. We gave it a shot, and when it was good it was fantastic. I'll always care about you. Let me know if you ever need anything. I'm rooting for you and your thesis.

 **Keith  
**[10:51 PM] i'm sorry, shiro. i'm sorry i could never say it back.

 **Shiro  
**[10:51 PM] Don't be. You need to take care of yourself. I'd rather you be honest with me anyway.

 **Keith  
**[10:52 PM] it wasn't about honesty or dishonesty.

 **Shiro  
**[10:52 PM] Then what was it?

Shiro waits for an answer, but it never comes. For the next several days, he wanders through his house as if he hasn't lived there for the past two years, rearranging furniture and forgetting to eat as if the kitchen has shuttered itself off to him. Coran calls when he reaches the top of the bestseller list, but Shiro can't seem to make himself care. The work was based on Keith, but now Keith is gone. It was all a moot point.

  

**17.**

_Dedicated to my muse, Keith._

  

**18.**

" _You're still that man!"_

Milestones don't halt the wars inside ourselves. They can temporarily abate them, crudely stitch wounds and pour sawdust over the blood, but there's still fighting, and there are still causalities to account for.

Shiro pushes through the successful book release, ignoring the speculation around his muse. It slams the forums and social media accounts that haunt his reviews like a coven, but he blinds himself to them.

i.e.

_shirogane got bit by the love bug. can you imagine being that GUY lol_

_bet his ass got trashed like akira's in the seventh chapter sans tentacles_

_right don't act like there aren't ways to make the tentacles happen haa_

One of his readers gets close. Too close, even.

Apparently, and as much of a surprise to Shiro as it was to Coran, Keith was once a prolific latex model for an adult website. The pictures were from the nose down, but someone was able to identify the model as Keith and unearth incrementing evidence featuring Keith having coffee with Shiro near his school.

It blew over, but the way seeing the pictures of him and Keith together made Shiro's pulse press on the gas was the final grain of sand in a tilted hourglass. Shiro needed a new therapist and fast.

Therapy is how Shiro finds himself alone in a car with Panera macaroni and cheese balanced on his thigh. He tells himself that, while he may be in the same parking lot from his Geek Squad days, he's in a Range Rover and not an ugly corporate bug. He's also wearing a black Ralph Lauren sweater and not a red polo paired with khakis and New Balances. Shiro guesses he wins.

Wins what, though?

Shiro didn't start therapy delusional. He knew there was no sidestepping the fact he would be forced to swallow horse pills. He's done it countless times before, but by the eighth month, he's world-weary.

With an in-progress sequel that applies pressure to write in ways Shiro only finds possible while in love and dealing with the fact he's the same man who drove Adam away, Shiro isn't sure if therapy is helping him or stoking a wildfire. Every session is a confessional, and every session leaves Shiro with the cold reminder that atonement is something we have to give ourselves. We can't expect it from others.

Logically, he knows there have been mild improvements, but that's the issue. Shiro doesn't bode well with mild. He's accustomed to being the fastest, the most skilled, but healing takes years. Wholly healing might not even be possible, and Shiro doesn't know how to accept some things are forever left undone.

He can tell he's waking up lighter, though.

One mug of coffee isn't lonely or blameful, and Shiro can now see where he put himself first out of habit. Before, he wasn't living in the present, and in ways, Shiro only truly existed via life's greatest highs.

It's not perfect, and while there is no perfect, there is always merit in trying. That's what his therapist tells him. If Shiro can be mindful from now on, then that means less hurt in the future. At the end of the day, that's all he wants.

Hurting others was never his intention, and it's okay to acknowledge that, to remind himself that he was sick, and while that does explain the things he did, he and Adam aren't excused. They never will be either, meaning there's nothing left for him to do but move forward.

In good theory, anyway. Shiro takes another bite and wistfully gazes out his open car window, taking in the late-autumn breeze sweetened by colorful oil spills.

If only the gods didn't love a  _deus ex machina_.

"Keith," says a dreamy but performative voice from several parking spaces behind Shiro. "Keith, the platonic love of my life, the brotherly peanut butter to my much sweeter and better-loved grape jelly, we're going to get their way too late if Pidge doesn't haul some ass. I'm about to get more McDonalds."

"Make that no homo a little louder, Lance. I dare you."

Shiro stops mid-bite, brow lifting high.

"Keith, the man who is strictly my sexless comrade and definitely didn't watch me jerk off at an Episcopalian summer camp in the sweet and sticky Alabama summer of 2014."

"Enough."

Shiro blinks at his steering wheel and wonders if he's experiencing auditory hallucinations, but he checks his car mirrors. He's not.

Leave it to Shiro to be too lost in his introspection to notice Keith's gaudy red Cadillac parking behind him. Shiro clears his throat and filters through his options. His initial thought is to start the car and slowly drive far, far away, but that might draw more attention to him and the unfinished noodles on his lap.

He doesn't want Keith to think he's stalking him, even though he was technically there first. Shiro has more of a right to the parking lot than both Keith and his incredibly loud friend.

"Hey, check out that lonely Range Rover. Do you think they're one of those suburban mom drug dealers?"

Keith doesn't answer for too long. "Shit."

"Is it a cop? Did you fuck the cop, Keith?"

Shiro hears Keith murmur something, but he can't make it out even with the window rolled down. It isn't until Lance sputters over his $1 McDonald's cup does Shiro accept he's been caught.

 **Keith  
**[1:45 PM] range rover, parking lot

 **Shiro  
**[1:45 PM] Cadillac, Episcopalian summer camp?

 **Keith  
**[1:45 PM] he's full of shit. we met our freshman year.

 **Shiro  
**[1:45 PM] I'll take your word for it.

The forced casualness in the greeting isn't lost on Shiro, but he decides the ball is in Keith's court. Shiro ruminates on the text, waiting for Keith to add a thought, but something flashes in his peripheral vision. Shiro glares down the 'objects in mirror are closer than they appear' as Keith's crotch draws closer.

Keith knocks on the back door. "Hey."

"One second."

Shiro knows that when he looks at Keith there's going to be a sucker punch to his sternum. He draws out the inevitable, shoving his trash into the Panera bag and tossing the crumpled up paper into the backseat.

"Hey," Shiro finally says, leaning out the window and ignoring the warmly computerized emotional noise that's Bon Iver's  _22, A Million_. "Long time, no see."

"Yeah," Keith says, hands shoved into his jacket pockets. He shifts his weight, and Shiro maintains a polite half-realized smile as Keith's gaze nervously jumps from his face to the ground. "Could only guess the odds."

"We could probably Google it." He clears his throat and sets aside the humor. "But to save time I'm gonna guess they're pretty slim."

"How are you?" Keith asks, pushing forward like a freight train. "I saw the book did well."

Shiro knows how he looks, sitting alone in a lot, but he also knows where he is now compared to where he was when Keith walked out. "I'm good, and yeah, it did. How are you? Staying out of trouble?"

"Always," Keith lies and chews his cheek. "We're waiting on a few friends to show up so we can stay out of trouble in a beach house a couple hours north."

Winking at him, he smiles. "Staying out of sight is the same thing as staying out of trouble?"

"I –" The wink catches Keith off guard. "So what are you even doing out here? Avoiding Coran?"

Shiro _could_  fill himself with bullshit and go with Keith's much gentler assumption or he could be scathingly honest. He decides on the latter, and he grips his steering wheel, shrugging.

"Actually, I was just eating Panera macaroni and cheese alone in an empty parking lot after an hour of grueling therapy." Shiro leans out the window, gracefully dropping his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose. "You know, the usual writer shit."

Keith tries not to laugh and fails. "Jesus, Shiro."

Shiro knows he shouldn't, but he laughs, too. He promptly shoves his sunglasses back up and rolls his eyes at himself. "It's improvement. I promise."

"I figured if you're letting yourself eat something that isn't rabbit food."

"I eat plenty of meat. Thanks."

"Oh, don't worry. We know."

Shiro groans at that and Keith throws him a crooked smile. He looks Keith over and then exhales as if conceding to an unspoken request. He pops open the door, and Keith steps back to make room for him. Shiro lets himself out, suddenly towering over Keith. From the corner of his eye, he sees their single-man audience watching and rapidly texting. Shiro thinks they might've met before, but he's not too sure.

"I got your graduation present," Keith says. "I was going to write a thank you note, but things were fresh, and by the time they didn't feel fresh anymore, it felt too late. Kind of rude."

Shiro crosses his arms and leans back against the car. "It wasn't much, anyway. Don't worry about it."

Disbelieving, Keith's mouth drops, which is fair. The gift was a custom platinum ring with 'Go. Be great.' etched along the interior.

Shiro doesn't know how to tell Keith the present was purchased with intentions of asking him to move in, and Shiro also doesn't know how to tell Keith that it still feels fresh. Terribly raw.

"Are you doing anything tonight?" Keith suddenly asks, the question framed as casual but clipped and nervous.

Shiro glances back through his car window. "This was sort of it for the day. I've been giving myself some serious downtime. No writing. A conscious choice this time."

"Good – uh…" Keith shifts his weight once more. "Do you want to come to the beach house with us?"

The self-preserving part of Shiro's brain puts its foot down. He's in therapy, attempting to get his shit together and put a stop to the incessant pining he's been carrying for the very Keith in front of him. The aching part aka almost the entirety of his two remaining brain cells wants nothing more than to tag along.

"Don't you think I'm a little too old for your crowd?"

"You weren't too old to have sex with me for months."

Nervously laughing, Shiro scratches his chest. "Pulled out the big guns there."

"We're sitting on a porch, smoking weed, and drinking beer. It's not a big deal, Shiro. Stop acting like you're ancient just because you have a mortgage."

"You sure you want to do this?"

"Don't worry about it," Keith says, intentionally mirroring the dismissiveness Shiro used with the ring. "It's just a B-team hanging out."

After a performative moment of contemplation, Shiro relents. He sighs, heavy and deep from within his chest, but there's relief in the noise. Keith nods toward Lance and guides him over, body language tight. He properly introduces the two men, informing Lance that Shiro is tagging along. Lance's beady eyes brighten as they dart back and forth between them, assuming plenty. Shiro can only guess what he knows.

"I'm going to ride with Shiro," Keith says, digging out his keys. He tosses them at Lance who catches them with a thoughtless reflex and victory sign. "Pidge and Hunk can meet you here, and the three of you can meet us at the house. Be careful with Red. One scratch and you're a dead man."

Lance passively salutes Keith and careens toward the car. "Sir, yes, sir. I'll give you a heads up when we're almost there. We wouldn't wanna intrude on the love shack."

Keith grumbles, ears glowing red. It's hard to believe he's the same man Shiro purchased sex from and referred to as 'Master.' Keith is already striding away from Lance, and Shiro knows he's expected to follow him, to exist like a tail burning behind an unyielding comet.

 

**19.**

"I read your book," Keith says after minutes of riding shotgun in a tense silence.

"I was kind of hoping you wouldn't," Shiro says and cuts his eyes from the road to glance at Keith. "I'm sorry."

"I loved you, too," Keith readily says, as unafraid as ever in the least practical way. "I loved you so much I thought it was killing me. Isn't that what Sven said to Akira? It's like a disease."

"You don't have to tell me this, Keith. It's okay. You don't owe me an explanation."

"I want to." Keith rubs his thumb and forefinger together, staring down the windshield. "I don't think you want to hear it, though."

Shiro pauses. "I do. I want to hear it."

_As much as I wanted to hear it eight months ago._

"Do you still love me?" Keith sternly asks the glass.

"I still think about you every day."

"I think about you every day, too."

Keith scrubs his mouth with a palm, but he doesn't say anything else. That's enough for him, and Keith has never liked saying more than what's necessary. He turns up the stereo and sinks deeper into the leather passenger seat, eyes locked forward.

Without latex crisscrossing his chest, Keith looks like a college boy who flew too close to the sun. He's burnt edges with a heart sculpted out of soft wax. As if Shiro isn't there, Keith mouths along to the song, drumming his index fingers. The casualness of his maroon beanie and tattered denim jacket are deceiving to anyone who doesn't know he lives his day-to-day like Pandora's box. The terrible things chained beneath a lid and much too devastating to unlock.

Shiro refuses to pity him. He always has.

When he was sick, it was the one thing that grated him the most. Piteous looks and bovine stares escorting scripted apologies for his most unfortunate luck. Keith was living the life he had been given, and while flawed and systematically thwarted, it wasn't fair to address his situation as if his dignity were secondary.

Keith did his best, and what more could Shiro ask for?

 

**20.**

They get drunk, embracing inebriation like a long-awaited ritual and sprawling across the sagging front porch. The cold ocean reels before them. It's a collapsing stage.

The sun is setting, and while Shiro's curtain is no longer closing, this could be his final act with Keith. He doesn't know his lines. There's no way for him to rehearse, and he hopes he's a natural at improvising.

Keith passes the second joint to Shiro, seated daringly close to him on the wicker couch. Music from Lance's iHome thrums through the sandy floorboards, but Shiro doesn't grasp onto the sound. All he knows is that he likes Lance, thinks Hunk is deceivingly funny, and cannot fathom Pidge's intelligence or chance relation to his old coworker and friend, Matt Holt. Mostly, Shiro  _feels_  Keith there.

It's how Keith's thigh is pressed against his, the way breathing causes Keith's sculpted chest to lift and drop in a way that's captivating beneath his plunging V-neck. Shiro's teeth ache at the visceral memories of crawling over the man's naked body, pushing his hands along warm skin that was so pliable and present. That's what Keith does. He anchors him into sensations Shiro thought he'd typed away, given to the next set of fresh eyes that could maybe tell him how he felt with a long, contemplative review.

He misses their long looks, staring one another down in disbelief because a selfish arrangement had unfolded into something that matted their feelings. Shiro realizes he doesn't know how to fall out of love.

"Imagine writing porn for a living and being able to afford Gucci," Lance mutters, staring at the sand granules on his hand. "That's incredible. You're like, my hero, Shiro."

"Thanks," Shiro says, unsure if it's a real compliment.

"That rhymed," Hunk distantly adds. "Anyone else feel like I set the timer for the cookies twenty years ago? I should probably check on them before we burn down the house or enter a time warp. That would totally suck. We'd have to sleep in the car or maybe on the beach. Are crabs carnivorous? I forgot."

Lance, for some reason, licks a grain of sand off his thumb. "Kolivan could buy a new one in five seconds."

"Lance, that's rude, even for you," Pidge says, already pushing herself off the wicker couch. "Someone help me make the pizzas. Rudeboy, Hunk, anyone."

Keith, paying his friends no mind, looks at Shiro and reaches for the blunt. "Want to go for a walk? It's quiet out here. It's nice."

"Sure," Shiro says without considering the other hosts. "I could use the fresh air. I think I might've overdone it."

Keith smiles, and after a final hit, reaches for his beer and Shiro's hand. The two men wave at the others and descend the creaky steps, feet promptly sinking into the sand. Shiro's guts curl inward the farther they walk, crashing waves and sleepy seagulls loudening. Beaches stopped being peaceful places for him after the lightning accident. It might have saved his life, but his body remembers the excruciating pain clearer.

"So what's next?" Shiro asks.

Keith matches his weaving stride. "That's a loaded question."

"We'll start slow," he says, hands sinking into his back pockets. "Grad school?"

"No escaping that one, but you knew already." Keith keeps his eyes on the sandy earth, still softly smiling. His gaze is long and thoughtful as if he can read their future among the shells with flat spiral ribs and driftwood that mimics cast aside femora and humeri. "Another book?"

"Another book, and more books after that one, but you already knew, too."

"Any more Sven and Akira?"

Shiro offers a hushed 'ah.' "I couldn't leave my readers hanging like that."

"I want a spoiler."

Spoilers are wishful thinking, a dreamy amalgamation of ideas and fantasies about him and Keith that never reached Coran or even his therapist. Shiro answers, wildly uncensored.

"The cave they were staying in together collapses. The debris separates them, and their communicators quit working. Eventually, their suits stop tracking their vitals. Both think the other is dead. When they come back together after experiencing individual hells, they're different people. They've gone on different adventures, loved other people, but they know the reason they became friends is still there."

Keith stops in his tracks, and Shiro doesn't notice at first. He eventually feels the absence beside him and turns around. Keith is stiff, partially visible in the navy night.

"We weren't ready for each other," Keith says, the briny wind trying to whisk away his words. "I wanted to be, but I wasn't. I had to figure some things out. I even found my mom."

"Your mom," Shiro says, realizing he had wrongly assumed she was dead. Keith only talked about his biological parents as if one day they'd up and vanished. "What's she like?"

Keith's expression remains on the cusp of agony, but when he exhales, it's a pithy laugh.

"She's great," Keith says. "We look exactly alike, too."

After a moment, Keith clears his throat.

"Her name's Krolia, and she wants to get to know me. Turns out she was friends with Kolivan back in college before she got pregnant. I think they even used to date before she was with my dad." Keith crosses his arms and continues to guard himself. "They had dinner a few years back after an alumni event, and she brought me up. Kolivan wanted to check in on me. I guess he expected me to be taken care of, but when he found out I'd never been adopted, he acted on impulse. He'd never admit the last part. Kolivan's not an emotional guy, but I think he wanted to save my mom's heart from breaking even more."

"God, Keith…"

"She didn't have any money," he says defensively. "She loved my dad, but then he died in this fire while she was pregnant, and she just wanted to do the right thing. I can't even hate her for trying."

Shiro sees Keith isn't finished, can read it in his furrowed brow and thin lips.

"I'm doing better," he says, the declaration firm. "Shiro, I'm not who I was."

"I know." Shiro can't keep his distance. He returns to Keith and grabs his shoulder, drawing him near. "I can tell, and I'm happy for you, but what happened was on me more than it was on you. I didn't give you the time you deserved. I assumed I didn't need to put in an effort. I assumed a lot of things about us both."

Keith lifts his gaze, and Shiro fights the urge to beg for forgiveness. He's doing exactly what his therapist implied he shouldn't and undoing months of work. He should've never agreed to the trip.

"The problem was you gave me the time of day. No one else had done that before," Keith confesses. "Kolivan might take care of me, but he's distant. He's there like a pamphlet, but then you stopped giving me time because of your life, and I knew you still felt the way you did about Adam and –"

Keith's voice cracks like wet wood in a bonfire. Shiro squeezes his shoulder again and inhales, wishing he had extended his empathy better, fought harder to consider Keith and leave Adam out of it.

"About Adam, Keith." He pauses, lips pressed together as he gathers himself. "I think I'm beginning to understand there are some people you love for the rest of your life. Some people you miss for the rest of your life, and it can't be helped, but that doesn't mean you were lesser to me when we were together."

"I think that's who you are to me," Keith speaks soft, every syllable cinched by pain. "I wanted to matter as much to you, but I couldn't compete with a five-year relationship."

"You never should have felt like you had to."

Keith presses the beer can against his cheek to cool his flushed face. "I didn't mean for this conversation to happen, Shiro. I'm sorry."

"It needed to happen. It should've happened the first time I said I loved you."

They let one another go and continue down the beach, existing in an effortless silence the way they once did on Shiro's couch.

"I'm sorry," Shiro finally says. "I didn't understand how much you loved me. I was afraid to move on and deal with everything that came with moving on."

Keith corrects him. "You didn't understand how much I love you."

"Can we try again?" Shiro asks. "Am I allowed to ask that while I'm this baked? Probably not."

"You sound lucid enough to me."

Shiro anticipates Keith's yes or no answer, but Keith offers him something different. His feet slow to a halt at the edge of the dark water, the frothiness a thin soapy curve.

"I'm going to tell my mom about you," he says, decided in the most casual way.

Keith chugs the final mouthful of his beer and pointedly strides away from the water. There's a blue recycling bin perched along the line where sand meets grass, and Keith deposits his can inside. His eyes focus on the distant house where his friends are waiting for them, and though it might be a trick of the moonglow, Shiro can't help but think he looks less like willful Icarus and more like a red-crowned crane.

  

**21.**

People don't fall back together. They sit at a loom side-by-side and weave.

When Keith re-enters Shiro's life, he's no longer working for the Black Lion Club. He's waiting tables with Lance at the high-end restaurant, Coalesce, spending his AM after-hours beating a palm along an oak bar to nostalgic songs like songs by Everclear. If Shiro is given the task of meeting him there, he knows he'll find Keith with a complimentary whiskey in hand, white apron hanging around his neck like a towel.

He always has shift stories, but before, Keith never talked about work or past jobs. Whether or not it was for Shiro's sake or his own, Shiro could never say. Now, as soon as he sees Shiro, his tongue rolls fast.

"Watched a couple of women eat lobster eggs today." Keith pulls a knotted cherry stem from between his teeth and points at Shiro with it. "Have you ever seen lobster eggs before?"

"No," Shiro says while Pidge makes him an on-the-house Manhattan. He's strangely fond of the moment. Mostly, he's fond of Keith's newfound need to tell him about the small things. "Are they orange?"

"It's supposed to be red when cooked, but they wanted it borderline raw, so it was black. It ended up running down their chins and arms, and when I went to clean their stacked plates, it dripped all over me. Lance and I ran into one another in the kitchen and he gagged when he saw. I had to borrow an apron."

"That's disgusting." Shiro pushes a twenty toward Pidge who gives him double finger guns. "Did they at least tip you?"

Lance cuts in, spreading his arms along the backs of their bar chairs. "Not what they should've. They sent the lobster back twice, too. Chef refused to wrap his head around an undercooked lobster."

"Because it's a lawsuit waiting to happen." Keith pushes Lance's face out from between them. Lance returns and kisses both their cheeks. He sprints out of Keith's reach. Grumbling, Keith wipes his face with an exhale. He's desensitized to Lance's antics. "Did you get any writing done?"

"Enough to keep Coran pacified," Shiro says, steering his straw through ice cubes. "My eyes started burning midway through an ass-ramming scene on planet Rolnarth, so I had to raise the white flag."

Overhearing, Pidge knits her eyebrows together and drifts away, but it's obvious she's eavesdropping for a spoiler. Shiro twirls his glass on a small white napkin and clears his throat with a smile. Eventually, Pidge gives up with a grumbled 'fine' and begins playing mad scientist with leftover drink garnishes.

"Finish your drink," Keith orders as he drops his head onto Shiro's shoulder. "I want to go home, shower off the crustacean guts, and go to bed."

Home.

Love without rose-tinted glasses teaches Shiro something that could have only happened with time. There shouldn't be a consistent high. Sometimes there is only the earthly hum of the day, and while those who don't understand might view it as life's filler, he discovers being able to exist quietly in a space with someone else, thoughtlessly careening between the obstacles of work and cooking a simple dinner for two, is the real destination. When people think about lasting love, that's what they're intuitively seeking.

Viewing love as a celestial explosion that scatters hearts like newborn stars is beautiful on the page, but it's a representation of falling apart, aesthetic over practicality and security. Shiro knows he'll never write about love the same way again, and while that once scared him, he decides it's better for his feelings to mature than stagnate in the bygones. Whether we like it or not, we grow older, and if we're lucky, wiser.

Shiro has more conversations with himself, which means it's easier for him to have conversations with Keith. The most meaningful ones come in the feather-light evening. It's when the sheets are wrinkled from an unsuccessful attempt at falling asleep spooning. Usually, Keith turns to face Shiro first, but it's always Shiro who offers an initiating thought.

The evening before Shiro meets Krolia, Keith speaks first.

"I wish we'd met each other now," he confesses, glassy stare bright in the cool dark. "Things would be different. You'd like me better. Everything feels cramped now. I can't take back the person I was to you."

"I don't want you to take him back. I still love him more than I can handle." Shiro reaches for Keith's hand, thumb petting his scarred knuckles. "Maybe this was the natural order of things. Earth couldn't handle us at our full potential. We would have caused a core collapse. Try to think of it as the concept of time being fair to the rest of humanity. All of this happened for a reason, Keith. There was no other way."

Keith smiles, his expression wry and as handsome as ever. "It's hard to think like that when you're not a writer."

"Correction," Shiro says, rolling himself on top of Keith. He's met with an exasperated laugh. "It's hard not to think like that after you've been struck by lightning. Plus, saying we're in therapy isn't as literary."

Keith's laughter continues warm against the patch of skin beneath Shiro's earlobe. He presses his nose against the spot, wrapping his arms around Shiro's neck and settling beneath the broader man's weight.

The constraints of their intimacy and the unspoken rules surrounding their subtle age difference melted away after their evening on the beach. Shiro scoots halfway off Keith and drapes himself across Keith's chest, breathing gradually evening out as Keith's fingers absently play with his shower-damp hair.

"I love you," Keith says as if only then realizing.

Shiro murmurs back with the same inflection, fingers dancing along the platinum band Keith wears like an unspoken engagement ring. "I love you."

They wake up in the same position, legs interweaved and hair mussed like sleepy cherubs.

Keith dons an unbothered expression throughout their morning routine, but Shiro catches him watching the clock and glancing at his phone for the time. Their brunch with Krolia and Kolivan is supposed to be about casual introductions, but Keith can't relax.

"I never thought I'd have to do this," Keith says once they're standing outside the cafe. He's smoking a clove. "I used to joke about not having parents and how much easier it was not answering to anyone."

Shiro knows he has to distract Keith before he spirals.

"Are you staying the night again?" he asks and wraps an arm around Keith's shoulders. "It's not a big deal, but I have to be out of the house early for a meeting with Allura. I didn't know if you'd want to ride along and get coffee or maybe even breakfast after. It's just a short talk. It shouldn't really take long."

"You're kidding," Keith says, shifting his weight closer to Shiro and nudging him with an elbow. "I haven't left the house in a month. I'm basically paying rent on a glorified closet. I'll be there tomorrow and the next day, and if the trend stays the same, then I'll probably be there the day after that."

"Glorified closet." Like a boulder trap, words race from between Shiro's lips, a powerful force he can either run from or be crushed by. "You know, I've been thinking. Did you just want to move in?"

Keith rapidly exhales smoke through his nostrils and breathes back clean air. His eyes fall to the ground and then shift to the side as he takes another drag, filter pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Lifting his index finger, Keith smears the cherry Djarum against a nearby brick wall and flicks it into the gutter.

He gives himself another second to ponder, disbelieving gaze shifting back to Shiro. The pause is almost too long, an unnerving hesitation. Shiro knows he needs to give Keith an out, but before he can, Keith speaks.

"Okay," he says, shrugging. "It gives us something to tell Krolia and Kolivan, too."

"Okay," Shiro repeats, unintentionally asking a question. Keith nods, lifting an eyebrow and inspecting Shiro. He smiles and Shiro recovers. "We'll figure out how to break your lease this week then."

A passing flash catches Keith's eye, and Shiro follows his line of sight, watching as Kolivan's silver Quattroporte rounds the bend for valet parking. Keith adjusts his Burberry trench and nods toward the restaurant door with a slanted smile. Shiro matches the nervous expression, and when Keith offers him his hand, he slips his gloved fingers into it, allowing the shorter man to pull him through the front door.

Before Keith can speak with the hostess, Shiro leans over his shoulder from behind and mischievously whispers. "If you're moving in, then does that mean the latex shorts can come out of retirement?"

Masking a smile, Keith whispers back. "Watch it or you'll be the one calling me Daddy."

Shiro presses his nose against Keith's temple with a hushed burst of laughter, and grabbing him by the hips, pulls Keith's back against his chest. Public or not, Keith doesn't outwardly mind. He cradles the side of Shiro's face and both men bravely welcome the tenderness, knowing the other will endure to be there.

For the first time in his life, Shiro decides he's wholly happy to be human.


End file.
